The NHL’s 2010-11 season opens at 9am PT tomorrow when the Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild face off in Helsinki, Finland, one of several Europe-based openers the league has planned. But when the Boston Bruins take to the ice against the Phoenix Coyotes in Prague, Czech Republic a few days later the specter of traumatic brain injuries will hang over the team in the form of their absent star center, Marc Savard.
As I noted in several blogs last spring, the concussion Savard sustained after a vicious hit to the head spurred interim rule changes while last season was still under way. After having the summer months to consider tweaks to those rules, the NHL recently announced that it is banning what are known as “blindside hits” to the head – like the one that took out Savard – according to the Reuter News Agency.
Speaking to reporters, however, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman noted that the new version of the rule is also designed to ensure that “some of the responsibility for player safety remains with the player being targeted,” according to the Reuters report.