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Taking brain injuries Head On

Ian Busby, Calgary Sun Sunday, May 15, 2011

Kerry Goulet was banging his head against a wall talking about concussions for nine years before a breakthrough arrived.

It took a fallen star for head injuries to get major attention, but at least something positive has come from Sidney Crosby’s concussion.

Goulet, the founder of Stopconcussions.com — along with former NHLer Keith Primeau — has educated the public about head injuries since leaving pro hockey with his own problems.

But it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh Penguins captain got rattled Jan. 1 that a bigger spotlight arrived.

Crosby took a shot to the head but kept playing, eventually suffering a second hit four days later that knocked him out for the 2010-11 NHL season.

When Goulet spoke Sunday at Head On: The Sport Injury Prevention Convention at the University of Calgary, his No. 1 message is players need to come clean after taking head blows.

No matter how bad Crosby seemed at the time — his groggy words were caught by HBO cameras — nobody kept him from playing again.

“Keith and I were together, and we both said, ‘How can they allow him to go back on the ice?’ ” Goulet said.

“There is no way you couldn’t have seen he had brain abnormality at that time.

“If there is any doubt, they don’t play. It’s difficult to tell an athlete he won’t play. But if we keep doing this, we will keep on damaging brains, and it’s irreparable. Once it’s broken, it’s not coming back.”

Now there is another high-profile case shedding light on the problem, an issue former professional wrestler and Harvard football player Chris Nowinski has championed since starting the Sports Legacy Institute in 2007.

NHL tough-guy Derek Boogaard, 28, died tragically Friday, and his family is donating his brain to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, where Nowinski is a co-director.

This is the same group that diagnosed enforcers Reggie Fleming and Bob Probert as having chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Nowinski spoke Sunday at the Calgary Bulldogs Football Association seminar about how CTE is diagnosed, using his own repeated ignorance about concussions as an example.

There are several examples of football players whose suicides are related head blows throughout their careers, but it wasn’t until their brains were studied that the damage was fully revealed.

“It seems unethical we haven’t been telling athletes about this, but we haven’t,” Nowinski said. “The status quo has to change. The evidence we have in our lab says we did things wrong. We need radical change to fix the future.

“The legacy donors have provided the proof the world need to take this more seriously. They have changed people’s minds.”

As a former football player, Nowinski is trying to educate coaches, parents and players about how to avoid unnecessary head hits, especially in practice.

Children are much more easy concussed than adults, and Nowinski illustrated his point by showing two young football players knocking helmets in a pointless drill.

“My best advice: Stop hitting kids in the head,” Nowinski said.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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