![]() ![]() ![]() The cheering public, the aging middle-age hockey hackers who play maybe once a week now, and who never got close to being an NHLer but played the game, nonetheless, as a kid.īecause that is what Canadian kids do. ![]() A class action lawsuit against the great frozen game launched by you and me. Andrew Vaughan / The Canadian Press filesīut then maybe we have a case, too, against hockey. So the NHL is guilty then, right? Are they are just as cooked, legally speaking, as the NFL, which recently agreed to pay US$765-million to former players with health problems related to repeated blows to the head? Well, maybe. More studies followed, and still more, and still more, and still the NHL did not adopt a formal “concussion program” until 1997 and didn’t actually make so-called head shots a penalty until 2010 - when there was a full-blown concussion crisis in the game and what the doctors had been talking about for years had become a common talking point around the NHL. It is a compelling argument, in some ways, and one made almost elementary when the plaintiffs point to some scientific smoking guns, like a study - published in 1928 in the Journal of the American Medical Association - linking blows to the head to the phenomenon of the “punch drunk” boxer. The league wants hits, fights and a rock’em, sock’em culture, the argument goes, but they don’t want to take responsibility for the consequences - for retired players waking up at age 50 with dizzy spells and mood swings and a life in tatters because of the life they led taking shots to the head as a professional hockey player. They are the gatekeepers, and yet the gate when it comes to concussions, the players allege, was left open for far too long by an NHL that champions mayhem. The NHL, the argument follows, profits from the violence peddling while at the same time acting as the supposed “arbiters” of player safety. “The public statements of Don Cherry and the use of highlights on such sites as and his video series Don Cherry’s Rock’em, Sock’em Hockey are further examples of this violence-centered culture promoted by the NHL.” Films such as Slapshot, The Last Gladiators, Goon, Youngblood and others reflect this NHL-inspired culture. “For decades,” the plaintiffs, among them three-time 50-goal scorer and former Toronto Maple Leafs captain, Rick Vaive, allege that “the NHL has nurtured a culture of violence. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt. ![]()
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