Air Canada, a major sponsor of the N.H.L., has urged the league to crack down on violence, and a criminal investigation has begun in Montreal as the result of a hit on Tuesday night that left a Canadiens player with a concussion and a fractured vertebra. Zdeno Chara, the Boston Bruins player who shouldered Max Pacioretty of Montreal into a stanchion at the end of the players’ bench and seriously injured him, was not suspended by league disciplinary officials in the aftermath of the incident, and their decision was supported by N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman. Nevertheless, the incident puts further pressure on the league’s general managers to address the issues of violence and player safety at their annual meeting next week in Boca Raton, Fla.
If you put large, strong men on skates and then have them hit the ice and run into one another at speeds upwards of 25-30 MPH…well, there are a lot of things that might happen, and few of them are good. This is becoming even more true as players in the National Hockey League continue to become bigger, faster, and stronger. The speed and the collisions are selling points for the NHL, to be sure, but at what point does enough become too much? When do we come to understand that high-speed collisions can, and often do, result in serious injuries to the players involved?
When Boston’s Zdeno Chara ran Montreal’s Max Pacioretty into a stanchion on Tuesday night, it seemed as if that point might have been reached. The hit, horrific as it was, thankfully appears to have left Pacioretty without a serious injury. He’s a lucky man, but even though I love the game of hockey, I’m concerned about the NHL’s delays and foot dragging when it comes to keeping a violent game from becoming a deadly one. Of particular concern to me is the problem of hits to the head. Concussions have become a serious problem in the NHL; when stars like Sidney Crosby miss significant playing time due to concussions, it’s not something the league can afford to ignore for very long. Beyond the obvious marketability issues, there’s the reality that a growing number of players are suffering serious head injuries, injuries that may impact players’ well-being long beyond the end of their playing careers.
The N.H.L.’s handling of hits to the head in particular has come under additional scrutiny after researchers last week said they found that Bob Probert, a brawling former hockey player who died last year of a heart ailment, had the same degenerative brain disease that prompted the N.F.L. to change some rules and policies in an effort to limit dangerous head impacts.
The N.H.L. passed a rule before this season banning blindside hits to the head, but the move fell short of steps taken by other hockey leagues that have banned any contact with the head.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman seems willing to play fast and loose with the long-term health of NHL players. Yes, I understand that Bettman is walking a thin line: on the one hand, fans love the speed and violence. On the other, that speed and violence has led to horrific hits and more than a few serious head injuries. At some point, the commissioner needs to step up and demonstrate to fans, sponsors, and players that the NHL takes this problem seriously and is committed to making the game safer. I believe that time is now.
Whether the changes involve tougher rules and tighter enforcement, going to the wider international ice surface, redesigning rinks, and/or better equipment, something needs to change- and soon. The problem will only continue to grow as players continue to become bigger, faster, and stronger.
One obvious solution, and one that will like be a difficult sell, is the length of the NHL season. While the NFL plays a 16-game season and a maximum four playoffs games, the NHL plays an 82-game season along with a maximum 28 playoff games for teams that make it to the Stanley Cup Finals (this doesn’t even take pre-season games into account). That’s a lot of potential collisions over a season that can stretch over eight months. Shortening the schedule would certainly seem a humane thing to do…but it will never happen. Giving up games means a loss of ticket revenue and lower player salaries.
What it’s probably going to take is a major sponsor, in this case Air Canada, threatening to withdraw financial support from the NHL unless serious steps are taken to reduce the violence and the injuries. Usually, the threat of losing money will cause a business to sit up and take notice, but Commissioner Bettman seems unaffected by the threat of losing Air Canada:
“Air Canada is a great brand, as is the National Hockey League,” he told the Congressional Hockey Caucus on Capitol Hill during a discussion on how to get more children to play hockey. “If they decide they need to do other things with their sponsorship dollars, that’s their prerogative, just like it’s the prerogative of our clubs that fly on Air Canada to make other arrangements if they don’t think Air Canada is giving them the appropriate level of service.”
Translation: If we want to continue treating players like disposable commodities, that’s our prerogative. Now that the NHL seems to have recovered fully from the 2004-05 lockout, Commissioner Bettman seems to think that he answers to no one. It would be nice to think that Bettman would take this problem seriously, but sometimes I wonder if a player will have to die before things change. Given the nature of the NHL game today, the death of a player is not a question of if, but when. Without action taken by the league to protect players, the time will come when a player will die as a result of an on-ice injury.
It took the death of Bill Masterton of the Minnesota North Stars in 1968 to galvanize the NHL into mandating the use of helmets…in 1979. It would be nice to think that the NHL and Commissioner Bettman have the well-being of players as their top priority. When you consider that it took 11 years for the league to make helmets mandatory, though, one really has to wonder what needs to happen for the league to take player safety seriously.
The short answer, of course, is that it will take a player dying for Bettman to get serious…and that’s just plain criminal.
