ESPN‘S OUTSIDE THE LINES

[nu2hockey]

ESPN's OTL show has a 30 min episode airing called " Head Safety in Hockey". Catch it if you can or go online,the conversation is a good start on hockey hemets . You can be sure that once Virginia Tech releases their report tomorrow ,the discussion about hockey helmets,concussions,and testing methodology will be subject one at all helmet manufacturers. The show has some quality layman's information for us who love the sport.

[thefatcat]

Glad I waited to buy my goons new helmets this offseason. They had Cascade M11's which are now Bauer IMS series helmets. I was actually considering Warrior helmets, this just reinforces my thinking.

[nahc]

Interesting that on the local news last night they did not even mention that 0 helmets scored a 5 star or even 4 star rating and that only a single helmet (Warrior) scored 3 stars. ALL the rest of the helmets scored 2 stars or 1 star and that Bauers most expensive helmet scored worse than their cheapest helmet........ Take this all with a grain of salt though. The testing paramaters by Virginia Tech may be flawed.......

[ASmoothSheet]

There's going to be a run to Warrior Known 360 short-term, but long term will we see changes??

NY Times:

"Although concussions can be caused by all sorts of contact, Duma said, they tend to occur most often when the head is subjected to 80 to 120 g’s of acceleration. The current standard for acceptability by USA Hockey and other governing bodies require helmets only to reduce high accelerations acting against the head to 300 g’s. A 2011 report by the concussion-awareness organization US Youth Sports noted that standard as the lowest “of any contact sporting helmet allowed for use in the United States.”

from NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/sport ... .html?_r=0

Link to VTech Ratings: http://www.beam.vt.edu/helmet/helmets_hockey.php

[almostashappy]

Link to VTech Ratings: http://www.beam.vt.edu/helmet/helmets_hockey.php

I watched the show Sunday morning, and (like most hockey parents, probably) placed what was said and what I saw within the perspective of personal experience. Which is why I was a little disappointed to see this on the VT website:

Through a series of impact tests, helmets are evaluated using 2 fundamental concepts: 1) each test is weighted based on how frequently players experience them and 2) helmets that lower head acceleration reduce concussion risk. The impact conditions and weightings are sport-specific, and inclusive of the broad range of head impacts that athletes are likely to experience. These methods have been published as peer-reviewed articles in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering and are free to download for football. Hockey will be available soon.

So they don't tell us how they estimated/characterized the frequency and intensity of impacts in different areas of the hockey helmet. And when they do...the "free to download" link to the peer-reviewed article that explains how they did this for football is only free if all you want is a one-paragraph long abstract. The full journal article costs $39.95 to download.

In the meantime...the VT lab simulated their testing methods for ESPN's camera's. It's the opposite of a vehicle crash test...the helmet is held stationary while a big hammer swings down and whacks it. And every "test" that they showed had the hammer hitting the front of the helmet.

Football players don't get hit in the back of the head very often. But the only serious concussion that one of my kids experienced over 20+ combined seasons was when my daughter got her skates tangled up with an opponent's, fell backwards, and hit the back of her helmeted head against the boards. I would also think that side impacts are far more common in hockey than in football. So I really want to see how they characterize/quantify the "broad range of head impacts that athletes are likely to experience."

The other thing to point out is that the easiest way to reduce the number of concussions in hockey would be to consistently penalize players who aren't wearing mouthguards (or penalize players who are "wearing" them by chewing on one end with the rest sticking out like they're a fish on a hook).

[JSR]

Link to VTech Ratings: http://www.beam.vt.edu/helmet/helmets_hockey.php

I watched the show Sunday morning, and (like most hockey parents, probably) placed what was said and what I saw within the perspective of personal experience. Which is why I was a little disappointed to see this on the VT website:

Through a series of impact tests, helmets are evaluated using 2 fundamental concepts: 1) each test is weighted based on how frequently players experience them and 2) helmets that lower head acceleration reduce concussion risk. The impact conditions and weightings are sport-specific, and inclusive of the broad range of head impacts that athletes are likely to experience. These methods have been published as peer-reviewed articles in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering and are free to download for football. Hockey will be available soon.

So they don't tell us how they estimated/characterized the frequency and intensity of impacts in different areas of the hockey helmet. And when they do...the "free to download" link to the peer-reviewed article that explains how they did this for football is only free if all you want is a one-paragraph long abstract. The full journal article costs $39.95 to download.

In the meantime...the VT lab simulated their testing methods for ESPN's camera's. It's the opposite of a vehicle crash test...the helmet is held stationary while a big hammer swings down and whacks it. And every "test" that they showed had the hammer hitting the front of the helmet.

Football players don't get hit in the back of the head very often. But the only serious concussion that one of my kids experienced over 20+ combined seasons was when my daughter got her skates tangled up with an opponent's, fell backwards, and hit the back of her helmeted head against the boards. I would also think that side impacts are far more common in hockey than in football. So I really want to see how they characterize/quantify the "broad range of head impacts that athletes are likely to experience."

The other thing to point out is that the easiest way to reduce the number of concussions in hockey would be to consistently penalize players who aren't wearing mouthguards (or penalize players who are "wearing" them by chewing on one end with the rest sticking out like they're a fish on a hook).

A couple of things in reverse order. Number one it's been pretty much conclusively proven that mouth guards do not do anything to statistically significantly reduce concussions in any sport. Their primary use is to prevent dental injuries. Scientifically they do nothing to prevent concussions though.

Secondly, the same has been shown true of helmets. Helmets primary functions are to prevent skull fractures. The reason being that the majority of concussions are not the result of direct blows to the head. They CAN cause them, but in fact high velocity collisions of the body are just as likely to cause a concussion because, in sort of laymans terms, it is the jarrng action that basically "rattles the brain" inside the head that causes the concussion according to most studies. Those bone rattling hits come in many different ways and most often are body blows not head blows. Hence the helmets primary function is to prevent skull fractures, the mouth guards primary function is to prevent dental injuries. Better helmets and mouth guards will likely do nothing to bring down the incident of concussions in contact sports like football or hockey. The only way to statistically significantly reduce them would be to change the rules in regards to contact. Better equipment won't solve it, in fact it actually may make it worse inadvertently in that the better the equipment becomes the less regard people have for their own bodies and others leading to more dangerous situations.

[almostashappy]

Better equipment won't solve it, in fact it actually may make it worse inadvertently in that the better the equipment becomes the less regard people have for their own bodies and others leading to more dangerous situations.

The theory of risk compensation...now there's a blast from the past. Eons ago when I was a college freshman there was this hot-shot young economics professor named Sam Peltzman who was making the same argument over mandatory seat belt laws. More to the point, you see the same argument made about football helmets...take them away, and players will quickly learn not to lead with the head, and will tackle like rugby players.

I can agree with the idea when it comes to protective equipment (or lack thereof). There's a reason why the "no lift" rule is so often in play during pond hockey games. But the idea of matching your level of risk to level of protection only works when you actually have the ability to fully moderate your behavior/actions. And who has that kind of control at the youth hockey level? Or even at the NHL level, if you're talking about consistently controlling the height of 90mph slap shots?

Update on earlier comments...the VT methodology has now been posted on their website, and it doesn't cost anything to download it:

http://www.beam.vt.edu/helmet/pdf/abme_ ... onDuma.pdf

Turns out they consider it just as likely for a player to get an impact to the front of the helmet as the back. Their methodology also used a median value of 233 impacts to the head per player, per season (extrapolation from data collected on a handful of teams). Quite a sobering number.

[JSR]

Better equipment won't solve it, in fact it actually may make it worse inadvertently in that the better the equipment becomes the less regard people have for their own bodies and others leading to more dangerous situations.

The theory of risk compensation...now there's a blast from the past. Eons ago when I was a college freshman there was this hot-shot young economics professor named Sam Peltzman who was making the same argument over mandatory seat belt laws. More to the point, you see the same argument made about football helmets...take them away, and players will quickly learn not to lead with the head, and will tackle like rugby players.

I can agree with the idea when it comes to protective equipment (or lack thereof). There's a reason why the "no lift" rule is so often in play during pond hockey games. But the idea of matching your level of risk to level of protection only works when you actually have the ability to fully moderate your behavior/actions. And who has that kind of control at the youth hockey level? Or even at the NHL level, if you're talking about consistently controlling the height of 90mph slap shots?

Update on earlier comments...the VT methodology has now been posted on their website, and it doesn't cost anything to download it:

http://www.beam.vt.edu/helmet/pdf/abme_ ... onDuma.pdf

Turns out they consider it just as likely for a player to get an impact to the front of the helmet as the back. Their methodology also used a median value of 233 impacts to the head per player, per season (extrapolation from data collected on a handful of teams). Quite a sobering number.

First of all the seat belt laws are apples and oranges to our discussion.... That said, I'm not talking about slap shots and I am not talking about not using helmets or eliminating them. I am merely suggesting that if we are to not change anything about the sport contact wise then the equipment is pretty much to the point where "new" helmet technology is very very very unlikely to do anything to limit further concussions, considering that current science tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions. Their primary function is to limit skull fractures because the helmet, no matter how it's designed, cannot keep the brain from rattling around inside of ones head when the action causing it is not necessarily a blow to the head, in fact it is most often not a blow to the head causing it. It's a bone jarring body blow that shakes the entire body including the head. Said another way, helmets in general probably help with concussions compared to know helmet at all, but there is no evidence that some help more than others considering what actually is causing the concussions once a helmet is in play in hockey.... The topic was narrow and so was my response. Very few concussions are the result of direct head contact in hockey. The majority of them CURRENTLY are created by body blows, especially ones where the puck carrier does not see the player hitting them making them more vulnerable. Same reason mouth guards have been proven to not be a "defense" against concussions but are great for preventing dental injuries. Lastly, I googled and I THINK I found info on the study you are citing and even the researches in the study, and it seems more focused on football than other sports but the results would be the same I believe, and they say that while some helmets MIGHT be more effective than others that "Coaches should be teaching football players tackling techniques that limit concussion risk" as that would be a much more effective measure than any helmet that could be designed.

P.S. you link doesn't work..

[almostashappy]

First of all the seat belt laws are apples and oranges to our discussion.... That said, I'm not talking about slap shots and I am not talking about not using helmets or eliminating them. I am merely suggesting that if we are to not change anything about the sport contact wise then the equipment is pretty much to the point where "new" helmet technology is very very very unlikely to do anything to limit further concussions, considering that current science tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions. Their primary function is to limit skull fractures because the helmet, no matter how it's designed, cannot keep the brain from rattling around inside of ones head when the action causing it is not necessarily a blow to the head, in fact it is most often not a blow to the head causing it. It's a bone jarring body blow that shakes the entire body including the head. The topic was narrow and so was my response. Very few concussions are the result of direct head contact in hockey. The majority of them are created by body blows, especially ones where the puck carrier does not see the player hitting them making them more vulnerable. Same reason mouth guards have been proven to not be a "defense" against concussions but are great for preventing dental injuries.

P.S. you link doesn't work..

Working backwards....

1) They've switched from having a pdf of the preprinted journal article on the VT server to providing a link to a downloadable pdf available from the journal's website. new link here:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 015-1278-7

2) Please cite references for your very assertive assertion that bone-jarring body blows are responsible for most hockey concussions, and that very few are due to direct head contact. Personal experience aside, that runs counter to the basic premise of the VT study. It also would seem to apply to football concussions, yet the work done by these same authors on football helmets has now been pretty much embraced by everyone from manufacturers to the NFL.

3) While you're at it, please reference the "current science" that "tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions." Not to be antagonistic, but you're sounding like a manufacturer's rep running scared.

4) Finally, since you're being so responsive, how is the seat belt analogy apples to oranges? As long as I'm understanding your argument correctly, it's a great fit.

Argument 1: If people wear seat-belts, they feel safer when they drive, so they drive faster, but the increase in speed negates the safety gains of wearing seat belts in the first place.

Now, you said earlier "the better the equipment becomes the less regard people have for their own bodies and others leading to more dangerous situations," which I translate into this:

Argument 2: If hockey players wear better helmets, then they feel safer, so they are more likely to check more aggressively, thereby negating the safety gains of wearing a better helmet in the first place.

[Defensive Zone]

Did you see channel 11 (KARE) 10 o'clock news last night? Their first story of the night was about hockey helmets and the VT study. During the story, the KARE reporter interviewed Dr. Stuart of the Mayo Clinic. He is the leading physician for USA Hockey. Dr. Stuart basically said he is not a supporter for the current hockey helmet as is. Very interesting commit. We will see what the helmet manufactures do now.

[Froggy Richards]

First of all the seat belt laws are apples and oranges to our discussion.... That said, I'm not talking about slap shots and I am not talking about not using helmets or eliminating them. I am merely suggesting that if we are to not change anything about the sport contact wise then the equipment is pretty much to the point where "new" helmet technology is very very very unlikely to do anything to limit further concussions, considering that current science tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions. Their primary function is to limit skull fractures because the helmet, no matter how it's designed, cannot keep the brain from rattling around inside of ones head when the action causing it is not necessarily a blow to the head, in fact it is most often not a blow to the head causing it. It's a bone jarring body blow that shakes the entire body including the head. The topic was narrow and so was my response. Very few concussions are the result of direct head contact in hockey. The majority of them are created by body blows, especially ones where the puck carrier does not see the player hitting them making them more vulnerable. Same reason mouth guards have been proven to not be a "defense" against concussions but are great for preventing dental injuries.

P.S. you link doesn't work..

Working backwards....

1) They've switched from having a pdf of the preprinted journal article on the VT server to providing a link to a downloadable pdf available from the journal's website. new link here:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 015-1278-7

2) Please cite references for your very assertive assertion that bone-jarring body blows are responsible for most hockey concussions, and that very few are due to direct head contact. Personal experience aside, that runs counter to the basic premise of the VT study. It also would seem to apply to football concussions, yet the work done by these same authors on football helmets has now been pretty much embraced by everyone from manufacturers to the NFL.

3) While you're at it, please reference the "current science" that "tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions." Not to be antagonistic, but you're sounding like a manufacturer's rep running scared.

4) Finally, since you're being so responsive, how is the seat belt analogy apples to oranges? As long as I'm understanding your argument correctly, it's a great fit.

Argument 1: If people wear seat-belts, they feel safer when they drive, so they drive faster, but the increase in speed negates the safety gains of wearing seat belts in the first place.

Now, you said earlier "the better the equipment becomes the less regard people have for their own bodies and others leading to more dangerous situations," which I translate into this:

Argument 2: If hockey players wear better helmets, then they feel safer, so they are more likely to check more aggressively, thereby negating the safety gains of wearing a better helmet in the first place.

He's right, there is very little any helmet can do to prevent or lessen concussions. A concussion occurs when your head's momentum is suddenly stopped, causing your brain to bounce off your skull. A big open ice, high speed check to the body with no head contact at all has a greater chance of concussion than a stationary player taking an elbow to the head for example. It's all about momentum at the time of impact. The only way to prevent concussions would be to line your brain with a cushion to lessen the impact of it hitting your skull.

So the bottom line is there is absolutely nothing that a helmet can do to prevent concussions or even really help much. This is why so many people are predicting that football will not exist as we know it in 10-15 years. I played football from 5th grade all the way though high school. It's a great game and I try not to judge people, but privately I think parents who let their kids play it are crazy. Why in the world would you risk your kid's brain like that? In football, there are collisions of some sort on every single play. And it's not just the games, it happens over and over again in practice all week too. You can't avoid contact in football. You can play receiver or D-Back like I did to limit the affect, but those kids at QB, RB, LB and Safety have no chance. I understand Hockey is a big concussion risk too, but at least you have some options for avoiding or lessening contact in Hockey. Nevertheless, once Football is gone Hockey will be in the crosshairs next.

[almostashappy]

Did you see channel 11 (KARE) 10 o'clock news last night? Their first story of the night was about hockey helmets and the VT study. During the story, the KARE reporter interviewed Dr. Stuart of the Mayo Clinic. He is the leading physician for USA Hockey. Dr. Stuart basically said he is not a supporter for the current hockey helmet as is. Very interesting commit. We will see what the helmet manufactures do now.

ESPN has posted a nice follow-up story that gets reactions from the helmet manufacturers:

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/ ... any-unsafe

As for what the manufactures will do now, I'm fairly confident that this will unfold the same way that it did when VT released their football helmet rankings, only quicker:

Four years ago, Virginia Tech's newly introduced STAR system shook up the football helmet industry. The school received legal threats from some companies, which claimed that the ratings were overly simplistic and unfair. One company whose helmet was not recommended went out of business. But football helmets quickly improved: Just one initially received five stars, yet out of 26 helmets tested in the most recent ratings, 12 received five stars and eight received four stars.

So just like teachers who teach to the test (or college presidents who improve their school's rankings by building aquatic centers with lazy rivers) the manufacturers will look at how VT is assigning stars, and they will build new helmets that are specifically designed to get good grades on the VT test. Because no company is going to be able to market a 1-star hockey helmet...parents won't buy them, and neither will AD's who are worried about liability when it comes to school-issued equipment.

And then all we have to do is wait 5 or 10 years to see if this new ratings system actually reduces concussion rates.

[nahc]

Froggy i played football from 3rd grade through college. First I would very much disagree with the statements concerning body collisions and concussions. The football players who are having challenges later on in life are those who received MULTIPLE high impact HEAD collisions almost every week during the season for YEARS. It wasn't the body shots that caused the concussions. I would very much like to see ANY scientific article indicating that body to body collisions cause concussions. Secondly, hockey scares the heck out of me......... Jablonski is a perfect example. Not a viscious hit yet life altering resulsts. I hold my breath each and every time players, of all ages, head into the corners. Have seen countless times where players go head first into the boards and pray that they are ok and get up.......... This is just part of the game and I get it but I would take issue with your statement concerning football. If I was forced to make a choice, I would have my son play football over hockey any day of the week. Football players are MUCH better protected to give and receive body contact than hockey players. The one item that gives hockey players the advantage is the surface they play on...... very fast but skates slide rather than being planted firmly on the turf or in the ground. Am sure this is blasphemy since this is a hockey site but that is just one persons opinion.

[Tron]

I know already what Manufacturers are going to do, because of their failures they are going to create new lines of helmets and the cost is going to go up more than the already astronomical prices of these lids. Did you hear the Bauer rep "I stand by my product" line... what a crock

[almostashappy]

I know already what Manufacturers are going to do, because of their failures they are going to create new lines of helmets and the cost is going to go up more than the already astronomical prices of these lids. Did you hear the Bauer rep "I stand by my product" line... what a crock

Funny thing about Bauer is that they currently market 12 helmets, and the two cheapest ones scored highest out of the 12. And the top-end $269 RE-AKT helmets that Bauer had been marketing as protecting players from certain concussions (before the Canadian Competition Bureau forced them to stop) only managed to get 1 star (marginal protection).

[Froggy Richards]

Froggy i played football from 3rd grade through college. First I would very much disagree with the statements concerning body collisions and concussions. The football players who are having challenges later on in life are those who received MULTIPLE high impact HEAD collisions almost every week during the season for YEARS. It wasn't the body shots that caused the concussions. I would very much like to see ANY scientific article indicating that body to body collisions cause concussions. Secondly, hockey scares the heck out of me......... Jablonski is a perfect example. Not a viscious hit yet life altering resulsts. I hold my breath each and every time players, of all ages, head into the corners. Have seen countless times where players go head first into the boards and pray that they are ok and get up.......... This is just part of the game and I get it but I would take issue with your statement concerning football. If I was forced to make a choice, I would have my son play football over hockey any day of the week. Football players are MUCH better protected to give and receive body contact than hockey players. The one item that gives hockey players the advantage is the surface they play on...... very fast but skates slide rather than being planted firmly on the turf or in the ground. Am sure this is blasphemy since this is a hockey site but that is just one persons opinion.

My statement about body contact referred more to Hockey, but certainly applies to football as well. Hockey players are traveling at much, much higher speeds than football players. If you're skating full speed down the ice and get hit head on by another player skating full speed and your body stops dead in it's tracks, even if your head isn't touched, your head also stops and your brain is going to crash into your skull. Head contact is not what causes the majority of concussions, it's your head moving at a high speed and then being suddenly stopped. Obviously this happens in Football too, but the speeds aren't as high, which will result in less of an impact by the brain on the skull. But you're also going to have it happen many, many more times in Football, so the cumulative effect is going to be bad.

I disagree on preferring Football over Hockey from a safety standpoint. Skilled hockey players can learn to either avoid or at least lessen high impact hits if they choose. We've all played with or seen that cat quick, small Center who you cannot line up in the open ice, they're just too good at avoiding it. This is not possible in some positions in Football. I just spoke to a Dad on our team recently who played all the way through D2 College. He was a fullback. So his job on almost EVERY SINGLE PLAY was to crash through the line as fast as he could and take on the Middle Linebacker head on. Not just in games but in practice too, over and over and over again. How could he and that LB possibly avoid concussions? He said he had over 10 that he knew of and some more that were probably concussions. The only time he came out was if he was knocked out cold and got helped off. Otherwise he kept playing. QB's who run, LB's and Safety's are in the same boat. Yes, hockey can be a very dangerous sport. But based on the indisputable evidence that we have today, the debate on Football is over in my opinion. The Jablonski thing was a terrible tragedy that can and will happen. But kids actually die on the Football field every year. I think there were 4-5 just last year. It's pretty tough to reconcile that when making a decision on your kid playing Football. Even if they survive, there are an awful lot of them that will be dealing with head trauma later in life.

[InigoMontoya]

I really hate to do this, but I agree with JSR - to an extent. His mention of body blow is being misinterpreted, and understandably so - body contact allows a crumpling effect that decelerates the head, resulting in less brain damage. A direct head blow, that either causes rapid deceleration or rapid acceleration, would obviously cause greater brain damage.

With all due respect to the scientists at Va Tech, anybody that has seen an old gangster movie, or that ran with a seedy group of bar brawlers in their younger days, knows that a stationary head that receives a blow does not experience a concussion (possible skull fracture-yes; concussion-no); hence the reason why you hold a guys head against the brick wall while you repeatedly crush his face with punishing blows - he won't lose consciousness. That's all I can comment on that matter.

[JSR]

First of all the seat belt laws are apples and oranges to our discussion.... That said, I'm not talking about slap shots and I am not talking about not using helmets or eliminating them. I am merely suggesting that if we are to not change anything about the sport contact wise then the equipment is pretty much to the point where "new" helmet technology is very very very unlikely to do anything to limit further concussions, considering that current science tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions. Their primary function is to limit skull fractures because the helmet, no matter how it's designed, cannot keep the brain from rattling around inside of ones head when the action causing it is not necessarily a blow to the head, in fact it is most often not a blow to the head causing it. It's a bone jarring body blow that shakes the entire body including the head. The topic was narrow and so was my response. Very few concussions are the result of direct head contact in hockey. The majority of them are created by body blows, especially ones where the puck carrier does not see the player hitting them making them more vulnerable. Same reason mouth guards have been proven to not be a "defense" against concussions but are great for preventing dental injuries.

P.S. you link doesn't work..

Working backwards....

1) They've switched from having a pdf of the preprinted journal article on the VT server to providing a link to a downloadable pdf available from the journal's website. new link here:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 015-1278-7

2) Please cite references for your very assertive assertion that bone-jarring body blows are responsible for most hockey concussions, and that very few are due to direct head contact. Personal experience aside, that runs counter to the basic premise of the VT study. It also would seem to apply to football concussions, yet the work done by these same authors on football helmets has now been pretty much embraced by everyone from manufacturers to the NFL.

3) While you're at it, please reference the "current science" that "tells us we are pretty much maxed out on what a HELMET can do in limiting concussions." Not to be antagonistic, but you're sounding like a manufacturer's rep running scared.

4) Finally, since you're being so responsive, how is the seat belt analogy apples to oranges? As long as I'm understanding your argument correctly, it's a great fit.

Argument 1: If people wear seat-belts, they feel safer when they drive, so they drive faster, but the increase in speed negates the safety gains of wearing seat belts in the first place.

Now, you said earlier "the better the equipment becomes the less regard people have for their own bodies and others leading to more dangerous situations," which I translate into this:

Argument 2: If hockey players wear better helmets, then they feel safer, so they are more likely to check more aggressively, thereby negating the safety gains of wearing a better helmet in the first place.

My reference is a leading MD specialist in IL who specializes in psychiatry, and neurology. A man devoted to the science of the brain for 52 years and is considered a leader in the field, having helped develop brain mapping and other concussion testing technology. He's personally evaluated my son in the past, he is an expert in the field and he taught me first hand what I know. I didn't google stuff so I have no links to cite but feel free to do your own research by actually talking to experts like I did. Until he tells me that there has been a change in science or its interpretation everything else is conjecture for me. Like I said before no one is saying helmets don't do anything to help prevent concussions but the cause of a concussion is the bouncing of the brain off the skull so to speak and the "whip lash" effect or "body rattling effect" is a major cause of them now. All I have are my own observations that are congruent with what this doctor presented to me at the time. I had asked him about different helmets and that is when he brought out all his books and stats on the subject and showed me that if I had a good helmet that it wasn't going to be anymore effective or non-effective than any other decent helmet because the type of hit or blow to the body or head that would cause a concussion while already wearing protective gear wasn't likely to be lessened by any advance in helmet or protective gear technology. He said at this point it's just an inherent risk to the sport so long as contact was allowed in the sport. He worked directly with hockey players and teams as well at the highest levels.

As for your seat belt analogy I still think it's not correct. For one other factors, like speed limit laws, aggressive driving laws etc... affect peoples psyche when it comes to speeding and aggressive driving so just wearing a seat belt isn't the only psychological factor at play when driving and that is what I was discussing in that regard.... But it's off topic.

As for the study, the study is focused primarily on football and while it's applications are noted I think we all have seen enough on the subject to know that football entails contact on every single play for some players and its the theory right now that repeated, lesser, trauma over time is what is having those lifetime effects on those players, especially the ones "in the trenches", whereas hockey players are not subjected to the repeated unending hits, not even at the pro level, that football players that play certain positions are. Now I believe the theory has credibility at the pro and junior hockey level for leagues where fighting is allowed and you've had your "enforcers" who fight regularly. Some of the high profile cases for hockey players have been the "enforcers", whose heads were subjected much more frequently to trauma from fighting. Again, no where do I say that direct head trauma doesn't cause concussions. No where do I say helmets are worthless. No where do I say that further study in all areas isn't welcome. But consider the science at hand combined with common sense and anecdotal evidence and I'm not sure how you can come to any other conclusion than either the sport needs to change to have any significant impact on lessening concussions OR we just need to deal with the inherent risk associated with the sport and acknowledge that it's part of it and change nothing, but being aware that by not changing the sport itself that further evolutions in technology likely won't do much to change he incident of injury including concussions.

[JSR]

I really hate to do this, but I agree with JSR - to an extent. His mention of body blow is being misinterpreted, and understandably so - body contact allows a crumpling effect that decelerates the head, resulting in less brain damage. A direct head blow, that either causes rapid deceleration or rapid acceleration, would obviously cause greater brain damage.

With all due respect to the scientists at Va Tech, anybody that has seen an old gangster movie, or that ran with a seedy group of bar brawlers in their younger days, knows that a stationary head that receives a blow does not experience a concussion (possible skull fracture-yes; concussion-no); hence the reason why you hold a guys head against the brick wall while you repeatedly crush his face with punishing blows - he won't lose consciousness. That's all I can comment on that matter.

Message forums are difficult to explain intent, tone and message very often, especially for me. The harder I try the worse I am at it. Many often misinterpret my meaning and my tone. You seem to have done a better job than I. I am in agreement with you on both.

[JSR]

Froggy i played football from 3rd grade through college. First I would very much disagree with the statements concerning body collisions and concussions. The football players who are having challenges later on in life are those who received MULTIPLE high impact HEAD collisions almost every week during the season for YEARS. It wasn't the body shots that caused the concussions. I would very much like to see ANY scientific article indicating that body to body collisions cause concussions. Secondly, hockey scares the heck out of me......... Jablonski is a perfect example. Not a viscious hit yet life altering resulsts. I hold my breath each and every time players, of all ages, head into the corners. Have seen countless times where players go head first into the boards and pray that they are ok and get up.......... This is just part of the game and I get it but I would take issue with your statement concerning football. If I was forced to make a choice, I would have my son play football over hockey any day of the week. Football players are MUCH better protected to give and receive body contact than hockey players. The one item that gives hockey players the advantage is the surface they play on...... very fast but skates slide rather than being planted firmly on the turf or in the ground. Am sure this is blasphemy since this is a hockey site but that is just one persons opinion.

My statement about body contact referred more to Hockey, but certainly applies to football as well. Hockey players are traveling at much, much higher speeds than football players. If you're skating full speed down the ice and get hit head on by another player skating full speed and your body stops dead in it's tracks, even if your head isn't touched, your head also stops and your brain is going to crash into your skull. Head contact is not what causes the majority of concussions, it's your head moving at a high speed and then being suddenly stopped. Obviously this happens in Football too, but the speeds aren't as high, which will result in less of an impact by the brain on the skull. But you're also going to have it happen many, many more times in Football, so the cumulative effect is going to be bad.

I disagree on preferring Football over Hockey from a safety standpoint. Skilled hockey players can learn to either avoid or at least lessen high impact hits if they choose. We've all played with or seen that cat quick, small Center who you cannot line up in the open ice, they're just too good at avoiding it. This is not possible in some positions in Football. I just spoke to a Dad on our team recently who played all the way through D2 College. He was a fullback. So his job on almost EVERY SINGLE PLAY was to crash through the line as fast as he could and take on the Middle Linebacker head on. Not just in games but in practice too, over and over and over again. How could he and that LB possibly avoid concussions? He said he had over 10 that he knew of and some more that were probably concussions. The only time he came out was if he was knocked out cold and got helped off. Otherwise he kept playing. QB's who run, LB's and Safety's are in the same boat. Yes, hockey can be a very dangerous sport. But based on the indisputable evidence that we have today, the debate on Football is over in my opinion. The Jablonski thing was a terrible tragedy that can and will happen. But kids actually die on the Football field every year. I think there were 4-5 just last year. It's pretty tough to reconcile that when making a decision on your kid playing Football. Even if they survive, there are an awful lot of them that will be dealing with head trauma later in life.

Bingo. Spot on

[shakey]

I know already what Manufacturers are going to do, because of their failures they are going to create new lines of helmets and the cost is going to go up more than the already astronomical prices of these lids. Did you hear the Bauer rep "I stand by my product" line... what a crock

What "failures" Tron? Hockey helmets on the market today meet the criteria set by HECC (US) and CSA (Canada). Boiled down, the VTU study findings seem to indicate that hockey helmets do not prevent concussions. That's not news and manufacturers have never claimed that their helmets can do so.

[nahc]

Froggy, you just supported my comments concerning head to head contact in football causing concussions, ie your fullback/linebacker. Perfect example of what I said, ie repeated head to head contact and concussions causing these medical problems, NOT body to body contact. I've spoken to expert physicians in their field concerning sports injuries including concussions which is far differant than speculation from a given expert in the field but possibly no real sports medicine experience. I am not dissing the doc you are referencing since am sure he/she is a very well respected physician. The whiplash you describe, ie the body coming to a total stop with the head continuing forward, is not the vast majority of physical hits that occur in either football or hockey. In football the head is usually down and is somewhat of a glancing blow. In hockey, its usually the same thing in open ice, ie thte skate has his head down when contacted by the defender. Again, there is usually not an abrubt stoppage in the offensive players forward movement, ie they are not stopped and flattened onto their back by the hit.......

I'll bet there are tens of thousands more kids that play football in the U.S. than hockey therefore there will be, numbers wise, more injuries. In fact there are more D1 football players at the University of MN than all D1 hockey teams in the state of MN combined. Also if you check out the deaths that have occurred for footballs players the past couple of years for sure, most were caused by undiagnosed medical conditions. They were NOT caused by hits on the field, etc..

I don't want to stray to far off the topic but wanted to provide some feedback on a sport, ie football, that is NO MORE dangerous to play than any other sport out there........ except maybe debate......

[Defensive Zone]

Did you see channel 11 (KARE) 10 o'clock news last night? Their first story of the night was about hockey helmets and the VT study. During the story, the KARE reporter interviewed Dr. Stuart of the Mayo Clinic. He is the leading physician for USA Hockey. Dr. Stuart basically said he is not a supporter for the current hockey helmet as is. Very interesting commit. We will see what the helmet manufactures do now.

ESPN has posted a nice follow-up story that gets reactions from the helmet manufacturers:

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/ ... any-unsafe

As for what the manufactures will do now, I'm fairly confident that this will unfold the same way that it did when VT released their football helmet rankings, only quicker:

Four years ago, Virginia Tech's newly introduced STAR system shook up the football helmet industry. The school received legal threats from some companies, which claimed that the ratings were overly simplistic and unfair. One company whose helmet was not recommended went out of business. But football helmets quickly improved: Just one initially received five stars, yet out of 26 helmets tested in the most recent ratings, 12 received five stars and eight received four stars.

So just like teachers who teach to the test (or college presidents who improve their school's rankings by building aquatic centers with lazy rivers) the manufacturers will look at how VT is assigning stars, and they will build new helmets that are specifically designed to get good grades on the VT test. Because no company is going to be able to market a 1-star hockey helmet...parents won't buy them, and neither will AD's who are worried about liability when it comes to school-issued equipment.

And then all we have to do is wait 5 or 10 years to see if this new ratings system actually reduces concussion rates.

Just watched the video...What struck me the most was when Dr. Duma from VT was asked: Why are these hockey helmets so bad? His answer was, he did not know. Not a good answer for someone that just got done saying that this product is unsafe. Just a thought.

[almostashappy]

My reference is a leading MD specialist in IL who specializes in psychiatry, and neurology. A man devoted to the science of the brain for 52 years and is considered a leader in the field, having helped develop brain mapping and other concussion testing technology. He's personally evaluated my son in the past, he is an expert in the field and he taught me first hand what I know. I didn't google stuff so I have no links to cite but feel free to do your own research by actually talking to experts like I did. Until he tells me that there has been a change in science or its interpretation everything else is conjecture for me.

Thank you for putting your unsupported aggressively assertive opinions within the proper context. Does this august leader in the field have a name, or is that the kind of "stuff" that you're expecting me to google?

[Froggy Richards]

Froggy, you just supported my comments concerning head to head contact in football causing concussions, ie your fullback/linebacker. Perfect example of what I said, ie repeated head to head contact and concussions causing these medical problems, NOT body to body contact.

Except that I didn't say anything about head to head contact in my example. Head to head contact does not occur on the majority of these plays if the fullback and linebacker are doing it properly. It's the going full speed and being stopped dead in your tracks that I was referencing. Obviously they will hit head to head at times but it shouldn't happen a lot.

Someone above gave the perfect example. You can punch someone in the head as hard as you can 10 times. He will probably have a heck of a headache, but if his head doesn't move, he will not have a concussion. But if that same guy runs into a brick wall with his shoulder at full speed, chances are he will have a concussion.