The National Hockey League’s 2011-12 season kicked off last night with both the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins and the team they edged out last summer, the Vancouver Canucks, losing close fought, first-night match-ups.
Those games (along with a Montreal-Toronto contest) were the first official ones to be played under new NHL rules that severely restrict (but do not entirely ban) hits to the head during play. Long known as a fast and violent game, professional hockey has shown increasing concern for the long-term health of its players in recent years. Concussions and traumatic brain injuries emerged as a concern partly because of changes in the game itself – players are larger, skate faster, hit harder and wear better padding than their predecessors a generation (let alone half a century) ago, and the wear and tear on their bodies shows. The issue became especially salient for the league in the wake of several high-profile injuries that have sidelined star players for extended periods of time.
The most notable examples are Boston’s Marc Savard who has never completely recovered from a grade 2 concussion sustained in March 2010, and Pittsburgh’s Sydney Crosby, arguably the league’s most famous active player, who has not played since the beginning of the year after suffering two hits to the head in rapid succession during games on January 1 and January 5.