Articles

[hockeygod]

Former pro hockey player awarded $605,000 over sex assault by coach

By KIM WESTAD, Timescolonist.com April 6, 2011

A former pro hockey player who said his NHL career was cut short because of sexual abuse inflicted by a childhood coach has been awarded $605,000 by the B.C. Supreme Court.

The 35-year-old Victoria businessman, who was good enough to be drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs, sued former coach Richard Hall in civil court for damages resulting from two sexual assaults when he was 13.

Justice Dev Dley ruled in a written judgment that the assaults and their impact — drinking, dysfunction and mental health difficulties — damaged the man's National Hockey League career, specifically the loss of a first three-year contract with the NHL.

The judge awarded a total of $605,000, covering everything from loss of money from that first contract, about $372,000, to $4,500 for future psychotherapy.

Hall, a former Oak Bay Minor Hockey Association coach, had also abused two minor hockey players, who later successfully sued the provincial government. The judge in that case ruled that Hall's probation officer was negligent in the fulfilment of his duties and the provincial government, as the probation officer's employer, was liable.

The probation officer had a duty to inform the minor hockey association that Hall had been convicted in 1984 of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy and had been sentenced to two years probation.

However, the association was not told and Hall went on to sexually abuse more players, including the man who successfully sued the provincial government this week.

Hall assaulted the man twice in the summer of 1988, including oral and anal intercourse. The assaults left the boy, who had been close to the coach, feeling betrayed, angry and ashamed.

He disclosed the assaults in 1989, after other sexual assaults by Hall were publicized.

The player carried on with hockey, his lawyer Doug Thompson said, although he experienced an undercurrent of anger when he walked into a rink, found it difficult to trust another coach and had difficulty forming relationships. In Grade 10, he discovered alcohol.

By Grade 11, he had drawn the eye of U.S. universities and the Western Hockey League.

He completed Grade 12 playing in the WHL, though he felt anger and a lack of emotional control on the ice, Dley wrote.

He drew the attention of the Maple Leafs when he was 17 and was drafted by them.

In the years before and shortly after, he still lashed out on the ice, and had numerous drunken binges. By early 1995, he had bottomed out, Dley said, and it was only then that he told his team managers about the abuse. He was counselled that year and had the best year of his junior career.

However, his career did not lead to the NHL. In June 1995, the Leafs told him they would not offer him a contract. He played hockey for several more years in the American Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League, both below the NHL.

Although Thompson argued that the man's career was hurt in various ways by the abuse, the judge ruled that the main impact was the loss of a first contract with an NHL team. The abuse created several mood and personality disorders, diagnosed by a psychologist.

Hockey requires not just physical ability, Dley wrote, but emotional control, mental toughness, a strong sense of identity, trust, a positive attitude and coachability in order to excel.

"I am satisfied that the plaintiff's disorders, which affected his mental health, had a negative impact on the mental and emotional tools required to fully realize one's potential as a professional hockey player," Dley wrote.

Without the disorders, Dley wrote, there was a "real possibility that the plaintiff would have been drafted higher. A higher draft position would likely have resulted in the plaintiff being given a better chance to secure a contract. … The plaintiff was denied that opportunity."
—–

Court awards abused BC hockey player cash

Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press, April 7, 2011

VANCOUVER – A British Columbia judge has awarded more than half a million dollars to a former hockey player who was sexually assaulted by his coach, a decision an ex-NHL star who was abused himself says is most meaningful if it helps the victim heal.

B.C. Supreme Court Judge Dev Dley awarded the victim $605,000 in damages after ruling the 35-year-old B.C. man's playing career suffered because he was sexually molested twice by his junior hockey coach when he was 13.

The man, who is not identified in the judgment, sued the B.C. government to get compensation for the possible income he might have earned through multiple hockey contracts over several years.

The province admitted liability in the case, after a previous trial found a probation officer failed to tell the minor hockey association where the man first played that convicted sex offender Richard Hall was volunteering in the organization.

In early March, a Victoria court heard expert testimony that the abuse was a critical factor in the development of dysfunctional moods and excessive drinking as the man grew older, and that those problems limited what might have been a promising hockey career.

The judge said without the disorders there is a real possibility the man would have had a better chance to secure an NHL contract. Dley noted in his written judgment posted online on Wednesday that the victim was a Toronto Maple Leafs prospect but never made the team.

Former Calgary Flames forward Theo Fleury, whose 2009 autobiography exposed his own story of sexual abuse as a teen, said the most significant part of the ruling was the portion of costs awarded for rehabilitation.

The man was awarded nearly $15,000 for vocational rehabilitation and psychotherapy, in addition to $372,000 for the loss of his unrealized first hockey contract and other damages.

"At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much time the perpetrator serves, it doesn't matter how much the government pays," Fleury, co-author of Playing With Fire, said in an interview.

"In the end, you want the individual to get the therapy that they need so that they can live a happy, productive life and at peace. At the end of the day, there isn't a certain amount of money that's going to make the pain go away."

Fleury is now a vocal opponent of sex crimes he says permeates not just hockey, but all parts of society. He's still waiting for prominent former coach Graham James— who served almost two years in jail in the late 1990s but later got a federal pardon — to go to trial on nine new sex charges involving himself and two other boys.

Fleury was encouraged by the recent judgment, and said he hopes it pushes governments to enact stiffer laws and forces people in authority, like politicians and police officers, to "pay more attention."

But the outcome didn't sway him to advise all victims to go to the courts.

"It's really up to each individual, where they are in their life," he said.

"If you're in the beginning of your recovery process it's probably not a good idea to throw that on top of what your'e already dealing with."

According to the judgment, the victim was taken under the wing of his abuser starting at age 10, when they went fishing and to the movies together.

"The plaintiff looked upon Mr. Hall as a father figure and big brother," the judgement said of the elder, who was a goalie coach.

When the boy was 13, Hall convinced him his niece wanted to engage in sex acts as long as the boy was blindfolded.

The boy complied but lifted his blindfold to realize the person was Hall.

"The plaintiff was horrified as to what had occurred and terminated his relationship with his assailant. The plaintiff was ashamed and embarrassed. He told no one."

Hall's actions were made public a year later, and the boy told his parents what happened. He got a medical exam but no counselling. The judgment describes the following years of his life, in which he progressed in hockey playing at various levels, as ones in which he increasingly suffered from personality, depressive and alcohol abuse disorders.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Many hockey parents finding costs 'unaffordable,' survey says.

By April Lim, Postmedia News April 7, 2011

As hockey season comes to an end, parents across the country are feeling the chequebook hit of another expensive hockey season and are already worrying about gearing up for next year.

The poll, done by Harris/Decima on behalf of Scotiabank, found almost half of surveyed parents expected to spend more than $1,000 on their child's hockey this year and that 90 per cent of the parents had already started saving money for next hockey season.

The survey also showed one-third of hockey parents think the current cost of having their children enrolled in the sport is unaffordable.

"We know that Canadians are passionate about hockey, and we know that hockey can be expensive," said Diane Giard, a senior vice-president for Scotiabank, which promotes itself as "Canada's Hockey Bank" by helping to fund minor hockey teams.

The survey found the bulk of the costs come from enrolment fees, which averaged $645 a year for those polled. Another big cost was equipment, where the average cost for the year was found to be $375.

Matt Ralph, 17, has been playing hockey since he was five years old. He plays in the Greater Toronto House League on both a house league team and a select team. He also plays on his high school team.

Registration fees for both Matt's hockey teams are $400 each. Luckily, the costs for his school team are not as expensive.

"It's unbelievable sometimes when you sit there and try and figure out what it costs to put a kid on the ice. And how long he can last with the equipment he has," Tim Ralph, Matt's father, said.

Tim recently bought Matt new pants and shoulder pads because he grew out of his old ones. But since Matt lives and breathes hockey, not only does he grow out of equipment, he quickly wears them out.

Tim said Matt's gloves need to be replaced frequently because the palms tend to wear out, affecting his grip on his stick.

Although hockey sticks can be bought at a reasonable price, some can break easily from just a slap shot. Matt carries two sticks when he goes to a game because he needs to have another stick should one break.

"You want your child to have the best equipment. You can go buy a pair of the cheapest skates, but depending on how often your child skates, you could end up turning around and buy a new pair of skates within the season just because they can't handle the stress being used all that time," Tim said.

Tim said buying used gives parents a break from the costs, but buying second-hand is not always the best option when it comes to performance.

Tim bought Matt a pair of used skates in the past, but the previous owner had the skates sharpened a certain way making the blade lower in the heel causing Matt to develop back problems.

"Technology is one of the biggest things that's killing (parents) because you can buy a wooden hockey stick for $25 to $30 in most stores, but kids these days see what the professional hockey players are wearing and they want these $200 to $300 hockey sticks," Tim said.

Hockey costs can put an added strain on families with multiple children, Tim said.

"Say you have two kids, you can hand skates down or equipment down to the next child, but say your kids are roughly the same age and physical size, you got to buy two sets of equipment," Tim said.

Jim Kinkley, a Minor Hockey Foundation Ontario spokesman said he is aware of the problem Canadians families face when paying for their child or children's hockey fees or equipment.

The non-profit foundation's Financial Subsidy Program offers families who have a gross income of $20,000 or less, a grant of up to $300 to be used toward their registration fees for the hockey season.

The survey results were based on 500 online surveys conducted between Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 last year on parents with at least one child 17 or younger playing organized hockey.

A spokeswoman with Scotiabank would not provide a margin of error, saying it was not applicable because respondents were selected from an online panel to make the survey sample representative by region and sex.

alim (at) postmedia.com

With files from Derek Abma

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[DaveM]

Character Study: How coach Red Berenson has spent 26 years making Michigan Men

By Ryan Kartje
Daily Sports Editor On April 11th, 2010

Chris Fox stood at the corner of State and Hoover Street, unsure of where he would go from there.

His path to college hockey had been laid before him like the yellow brick road. Nearly every Division I hockey program had shown interest in him, so he had options at his disposal. He was going to be a star no matter what corner of the country he ended up in.

It was 1993 and his decision had been narrowed down to just three schools. Bill Cleary, who had won the NCAA Championship just a few years prior, wanted him in Harvard Crimson. Ron Mason, the winningest coach in college hockey history, thought he should be a Spartan.

And then there was Michigan.

With Yost Ice Arena a block south, Fox glanced up from in front of Weidenbach Hall and an unforeseen bout of nerves began to set in.

Flanked by his parents, the 17-year-old fought down the nerves, and took the stairs up to a corner office that overlooked the busy Ann Arbor street, which he stood on just moments ago.

He knew who waited on the other side of the thick wooden door.

As the door opened, Fox peered in at a man that he had only heard of before. His reputation, to say the least, preceded him.

Fox had heard that he took a great deal of his coaching acumen from Scotty Bowman, who had just taken over as head coach of the Detroit Red Wings. But at this moment, the coach, with his skin cracked and rough and his blue eyes piercing, felt more like Clint Eastwood circa Dirty Harry.

So the nerves came back, this time like a tidal wave.

This is Red Berenson. He’s a legend, Fox thought to himself.

The coach stood before the Foxes, just as many other coaches had before him. Cleary and Mason glowed about Chris’s potential. “What can we do for you?,” they would ask.

But this coach, the same man who scored six goals in a game for the St. Louis Blues, the same man who won NHL Coach of the Year in 1981, the same man who had singlehandedly made Michigan relevant again, wasn’t the glowing type.

“So,” the coach said, turning to Chris Fox, “What can you do for Michigan?”

Fox was stunned.

For months, coaches catered to his needs, promised him playing time. What did he owe this man he had just met? Who was recruiting whom here?

The coach sensed his hesitation. He had a knack for that sort of thing, like this moment was all scripted beforehand, as if he was prepared for Fox’s apprehensive response. It was part of the game.

“If you want to be a Michigan Man, you should know in the next week,” the coach said to the recruit, who looked and felt much more like a kid than he did when he walked into the office just minutes before. “It will just become clear.”

Fox left bearing the weight of words he didn't quite understand. What was it about this coach that gave him license to give him an ultimatum? He wasn’t sure. Berenson’s aura had left him shaken, but even more curious.

So the Foxes made their way down the block to Yost Ice Arena that Friday to watch Michigan, in future Hobey Baker-winner Brendan Morrison’s debut, defeat Notre Dame in a rout, 13-0.

The steely glare. The ultimatum. The aura. It all seemed to make sense to the 17-year-old after the game.

Chris Fox marched up to Berenson’s office soon after the game ended that night and committed. He wanted to be a Michigan Man.

**

Renovations in 1996, soon after Fox’s meeting, opened up a room perched at the top of Yost Ice Arena which would become Berenson's office. It was supposed to function as a library of sorts, the coach tells me, but that didn’t make any sense.

I look around confused. This place sure looks like a library, I think to myself.

Berenson reads my mind. “I guess it’s more like a museum now,” he says.

He’s right. The room is lined with trophies, plaques, and maize and blue memorabilia.

The coach has his own bobblehead. So do a few of his players: a Brendan Morrison, a Marty Turco. There's the two national championship trophies, as well as a host of others. My eyes scan across the room and down the walnut shelving. It’s hard not to as light pours in from the bay window, catching every hint of gold in the room.

I think of how many people have walked into this room and sat where I was, asking for the coach’s wisdom.

It’s hard not to listen to him when he talks. My attention frequently sharpens with anticipation which builds each time Berenson pauses. “He’s just thinking about so many things at once,” junior Louie Caporusso jokes to me, “His brain has so much knowledge to process.”

Caporusso tells me later about the first time he met Berenson. Fourteen years old, the Toronto native had one objective to make the best first impression.

“The only thing I was thinking was when I shake his hand, I’m going to shake it as hard as I could to look as strong as possible.”

“I shook his hand and he says, ‘You’ve got a strong handshake. I like that.’ ”

Caporusso continues the story, describing the aura that I can’t help but be consumed by as I sit across from the coach, as a wealth of experience and adversity stares back at me.

Gordon Berenson grew up on the outskirts of Regina, Saskatchewan with a rink always right around the corner. His uncle, a schoolteacher, ensured he had the resources to excel, and by the time young Gordon was 11, he was already graduating junior high school.

As he made his way through high school, Gordon’s hockey prospects began to look more and more bright.

But his schoolwork interested him too, and it wasn’t until his coach, Murray Armstrong, took the head coaching job at Denver University that he realized what he was in for.

“There’s only six teams (in the NHL),” Armstrong told him at the time. “You better grow up and get an education, so you don’t become a hockey bum.”

“So I grew up with that fear,” the coach says. “I don’t want to be a hockey bum. I want to get an education.”

The Montreal Canadiens, who had drafted him out of high school, assured him he would never be one.

Before Berenson even stepped foot on Michigan’s campus, where he decided to play hockey, the Canadiens came calling. They told him he was crazy to consider going to college. He was throwing his career away.

“Montreal was waiting,” Berenson said. “They tried to bribe me, pay me, and I said, ‘No, I’m going to school.’ ”

The Canadiens would not be deterred. They wined him. They dined him. They even devised an elaborate plan involving Berenson going to McGill University’s engineering school while playing a 70-game, NHL season.

But when the dean of the engineering school at McGill told him it was impossible and advised him to go back to Ann Arbor, he knew the Canadiens would have to wait. They did, and soon after, he became the first college hockey player to bridge the gap to the NHL.

Berenson told this story to Caporusso — like he has to many players before him — as they sat together in a Seattle airport, waiting for the second leg of their return flight from Alaska this season.

And while Berenson spoke, Caporusso began to understand the aura that surrounds his coach.

“He went against the grain, and I think that’s why he’s become such a special figure in hockey,” Caporusso says. “I love that about him because he knows exactly what he wants. For anyone else, it would’ve been a no-brainer. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people would have taken it, but he didn’t, that’s what’s so great about him.”

**

Two years had passed for Chris Fox, and in his sophomore season, he still wasn't quite sure why he was here.

With the pressure of blue-chip status bearing down on him, Fox had yet to make a big impact in Ann Arbor. All of the reasons why he came to Michigan: the hockey program, the coach, the education — he begins to question what each one of them truly means to him.

But academically, Fox began to see a future shaping up for him in the medical field. His pre-med courses were his favorite, and ever since his sister was diagnosed with leukemia at a young age, the thought of being a doctor had always appealed to him.

But what about the NHL? Hockey meant so much to him, and his highly competitive recruitment seemed like it had stamped a ticket for him to the big leagues.

Thoughts of transferring and leaving this place behind began to materialize in his mind. He approached associate head coach Mel Pearson with his worries, and Pearson did his best to convince the defenseman to stick it out, even with eight other defensemen on the roster.

“It wasn’t always easy here for Chris,” Pearson says.

So Fox brought his worries to Berenson, whose wisdom was well documented by then.

And Berenson was far from surprised by his young player’s complaints. Fox wasn’t the first, and surely not the last blue-chip recruit to experience an identity crisis when entering the college ranks.

“All these kids are star players when they get here, and then they have to accept a different role and earn that role,” Berenson says. “When he got here, he was a highly recruited player … He really struggled at this level to be ready every night.”

But the coach was the last person who would let Fox, or any player for that matter, walk out on his education without a fight. He began to push Fox to focus on his pre-med classes, explaining that his future, more than likely, lied in the field of medicine, not hockey.

The coach’s response burned Fox up inside. He had never had to face this kind of adversity, and why would he? Everything on the rink was easy before his last two years in a Michigan uniform.

“Someone was telling me that I wasn’t good enough,” Fox recalls. “And I’d never had that before.”

The coach could sense Fox’s discontent. So he told Fox something he would never forget. And he never did.

“ ‘This is adversity,’ he told me. ‘This is what a lot of life is about, facing these challenges and figuring out a way through them and around them. You’ll look on this and be happy that you had this experience.’ ”

Slowly, but surely, after a series of conversations with his coach, Fox began to buy in to what Berenson was preaching. He didn’t have to be a prima donna to fill his niche on the ice. Soon, Berenson began to put Fox out on the ice more often, and before he knew it, Fox had found his place on the team. And aside from an assault charge and subsequent stemming from an incident that took place in the summer before his 1997-98 season which Berenson called uncharacteristic of Fox, by the end of the year, the coaching staff thought his contributions had become more important than the pockmark on his record.

The Wolverines won the national championship in Fox’s sophomore season with Fox playing a small role, but it was two years later, as a senior, in which Fox began to take form right before the coach’s eyes.

It was the 1998 national championship against Boston College and the game was deadlocked 17 minutes into overtime.

Fox took the puck and faked a shot from the left point as a Boston College player went down. Fox drifted behind the Eagle net and passed to Josh Langfeld, a freshman at the time. It was Fox’s dump-off and Langfeld’s next shot that sealed the Wolverines’ second national championship in three years.

The defenseman remains one of Berenson’s biggest success stories. To this day, he still gushes about Fox’s story, despite the fact that Fox never made it to the NHL.

Caporusso retells it to me. Senior defenseman Steve Kampfer tells me yet again. Both use Fox as examples of a player Berenson is most proud of.

“It’s not what’re we going to do for you, it’s what’re you going to do for Michigan,” Fox repeats today with Berenson’s voice echoing through his speech. “How are you going to make this a better place? That’s the kind of character he wants in kids at Michigan. He wants good hockey players, but really, he wants good students, good citizens, good people, people he’d be proud of to say 20 years down the line that ‘I was proud I coached that kid when he was 18.’ “

**

Since Berenson became Michigan’s head coach in 1984, the landscape of professional hockey has changed drastically, making it increasingly difficult for the aging coach to relay his message: that there is life after hockey.

NHL teams began calling players at a younger and younger age. Michigan commits began dropping like flies without their degrees, and the coach’s frustration has become increasingly obvious; he furrows his brow as he discusses the state of his beloved sport.

Players like Andy Hilbert — who was drafted in the second round of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft by Boston — leave early to pursue their childhood dream of playing in the big leagues. Most don’t have a backup plan.

The coach continues to warn his young players of the dangers of leaving early for the NHL, fearing that they will someday live his worst nightmare — being a “hockey bum.”

Hilbert, like others after him, drifts in and out of the NHL, never truly earning his shot.

They’re hockey bums, Berenson understands. And now, it’s his goal to save as many of his players from the same fate. But every year becomes more of a struggle.

Last season, the Wolverines’ best threat on offense, Aaron Palushaj, found himself in Berenson’s office after Michigan’s season ended in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Palushaj had made up his mind, and the coach did his best to support his decision. The sophomore forward had been drafted by the Blues, Berenson’s old team, and the temptation was too great not to leave.

“When you’re 19 years old and have to sign a pro contract, you really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Palushaj says. “I’m not Andy Hilbert, I’m a different person. If you think it’s time for you to go, you can’t just sit back and be scared not to sign. You hold your future in your hands.”

An injury hindered Palushaj from making a splash in his first season. Then, soon after he became healthy again, the forward was traded away to Montreal. Today, Palushaj is with the Hamilton Bulldogs, fighting tooth and nail for the dream he left Ann Arbor to fulfill.

“A lot of guys understand what Red’s talking about after the fact,” Pearson says. “Maybe when you’re 19 or 20, you see the money, you see the glitz and the glamour, and they don’t realize till later on, ‘I knew what he was doing, he was trying to protect me.’ “

Berenson gets worked up as he remembers players who left his system early. It’s almost as if he feels like he’s failed them, and his paternal side begins to show through with each example he gives. With each player, he promises the same thing: “If you’re good enough for the NHL, I’ll drive you to the airport.”

All of his players know this mantra. Jack Johnson, the third pick in the 2005 NHL Draft, is one of the few able to take advantage of it. But he’s the exception, not the rule.

This year’s team, a team characterized by its response to adversity, shows signs that it is beginning to understand Berenson's need to protect it.

Over winter break, senior walk-on Eric Elmblad knew he needed to meet with the coach. He made his way to the Berenson's office, but this conversation wouldn't be about the NHL or professional hockey or anything about the sport in general. Elmblad just wanted some advice about how to succeed in life — away from the rink — so he went to the man who he knew had the answers.

The coach told him to make sure to use all of the resources around him at Michigan, explaining all the steps he took to succeed after his time at Michigan. Of course Elmblad, an engineering major, would have loved to have a career in the NHL; hockey was, after all, his first love. But a career in the big leagues wasn't in the cards for him. Of anyone, having worked from day one just to preserve his spot on the team, he understood the coach's advice all along.

"Coach talks about that life after hockey all the time," Elmblad tells me. "This program is not about becoming a better hockey player — you’re going to be a better hockey player no matter what. He wants you to get those attributes that will help you be better in life."

Chris Fox spent a little over a year trying to make it in the NHL after his senior season, but a serious injury made his shot at the NHL an afterthought, as well.

But it was the next 11 years, four in Michigan’s medical school and seven as a neurosurgery resident, that would prove to cement Fox in Berenson’s mind as a model of the ideal Michigan hockey player.

“He was kind of a surrogate parent for all of us,” Fox said. “Without him, a lot of us wouldn’t be where we are today. I wouldn’t be a neurosurgery resident, I wouldn’t have the kind of personal success I had in my life without Red.”

**

It was an autumn Sunday in 2006 and Gordie Berenson, son of the coach, could no longer bear to continue blowing leaves out of his yard.

Gordie decided to take a break on his ATV, despite the fact that he wasn’t much of a trail rider. But there was a nearly 6-mile run spanning dirt roads in the area, and Gordie just couldn’t resist.

And as the trail neared its end, Gordie could see his house within sight, a few hundred yards away.

That's when Gordie lost control of his Honda and crashed off the dirt trail.

Gordie Berenson’s body began to falter. Helpless and unconscious, Gordie had sustained a serious head injury that would put his life into peril. As he was lifted out by helicopter, the coach was alerted to his son’s condition and told that he would need major brain surgery just to survive through the night.

The coach knew there wasn’t much time, and he wasn’t a man used to things being outside of his control. So he called the only person he could trust in this situation to save his son's fragile life.

He called Chris Fox.

Fox was spending his Sunday night at home when he answered a call from the University of Michigan emergency room. He wasn’t on-call, so he knew it could only be bad news.

“Coach Berenson’s son is in the ER. We thought you’d want to know,” the voice on the other line told him.

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he responded, heading out the door.

As he entered the emergency room that night, Fox experienced a transformation. All the adversity he had been through in his time at Michigan, all the struggles to find his role as a Wolverine, they were all leading up to this moment.

With two doctors on the case, the process to start Gordie's surgery was expedited, giving him a much better chance of survival. But when it came time for the procedure, Fox knew that he was too invested in the case to perform the surgery.

So while Gordie lay on the operating table, Chris Fox sat with the entire Berenson family, who had been in town to watch the coach accept an award the next day.

Fox tried to keep their spirits up. But even he wasn’t sure if Gordie would wake up from the surgery. And if he did, he could never guarantee to them that Gordie would be the same. Gordie’s sisters, both nurses who spent time at the University, prepared their family for the worst-case scenario.

But Red Berenson was just thankful to have someone he trusted nearby, someone he had spent countless hours trying to make into a man, someone who understood that he was no longer the shepherd, he was a member of the flock.

That Tuesday, the third day after Gordie’s accident, the young Berenson regained consciousness in his hospital bed. He didn’t remember anything after losing control on the path late Sunday night, but all of his motor skills were still intact.

Fox and the Michigan medical team had saved his life.

Berenson still gloats to his players today about one of the purest Michigan Men he knows, the one who heeded his advice and overcame adversity to do something more than just play hockey.

“Maize and blue is in my veins,” Fox says. “And to have this all come full circle with Gordie and the Berenson’s there as a family, it was the least I could ever do for Coach Berenson. It could’ve gone either way, and we had a great outcome. It’s a small, small piece of how I could repay him — a man who changed my life.

Fox had found the role he was supposed to play all along.

“There were some issues during his career,” Gordie tells me last month, completely recovered from his accident. “But the fact that he stayed four years, won two national titles, goes on to medical school and to get involved by helping save my life, it’s really special to me every time I see him. Him filling that role and getting involved in his coach’s life — it saved my life.”

**

The coach is in a good mood today, a week removed from his team’s unprecedented and unexpected run to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

He grips his coffee, always in its glass mug, like he has in every other meeting we’ve had to this point.

I spot something beside his desk that I've never seen before — a picture tacked up to his bulletin board of a bearded, shirtless man, grinning widely in a long wooden canoe. The man looks like he’s at home.

“That’s me in 1972,” the coach says later. The photo was taken on his annual canoe trip, which he still takes to this day. I ask him if he’s ever grown out a beard like that since then, he says no and springs into a conversation about how today’s NHL players give a bad impression with their playoff beards. He’s still the same coach.

According to most of his players and fellow coaches, the 70-year-old is far from acting his age. Some even venture to say he’s in better shape than many of his players. There’s also wide consensus that his backhand is by far the best on the team.

“I think he could go for another 10 years,” Caporusso tells me.

It’s been 26 years since he took over a struggling program. Twenty-six years since he had to stand out on the Diag just to sell tickets to fans and convince them to support the hockey program.

He gestures to another picture behind his desk, it’s of him and two other men, one I recognize as Don Canham. It’s from the first day he took over for John Giordano, Michigan's last coach before him.

“If someone would’ve told me then it would’ve taken five years to get this team back on it’s feet, I don’t know if I would’ve taken the job,” he jokes, dryly.

But it’s 26 years after that photo was taken, and Red Berenson has gotten pretty comfortable.

Now, instead of signing on long-term, the coach has signed one-year contracts, meeting with associate athletic director Mike Stevenson to discuss his future. His meeting to decide on next season should take place soon.

Those close to him insist they have no idea how long he’ll stick around Yost Ice Arena. Gordie contends that even the coach’s wife, Joy, has no concept of when his hockey career will end.

“There’s a time,” Berenson tells me. “I’m getting closer to the time. I don’t know when that time is, but it’s not far away. And maybe a year like this would make it tougher to enjoy the job. But still, I think we’re still doing the right thing here.

“They know I won’t stay here forever.”

Immediately after the Wolverines' run ended in the NCAA Midwest Regional in Fort Wayne, Ind. just weeks ago, Elmblad, the walk-on who hadn't appeared in a game all season long, approached the coach. He grabbed his large, weathered hand and shook it, looking him straight in the eyes as if to thank him for the four years that Elmblad had worked his entire life for.

It didn't matter that the walk-on had played very little in his college hockey career. According to him, he had earned something much more valuable in his four years at Michigan than simply time on the ice.

Less than a week later, Elmblad stood at the podium in front of a packed room at the Sheraton Four Points hotel for the team's end-of-the-year banquet. Of the five graduating seniors, Elmblad was the only one without prospects in professional hockey.

Looking out across the banquet room, tears ran down Elmblad's face. So many people had helped him get to this podium, he stood silent for a brief moment, overwhelmed by the realization.

But as his goodbye speech came to an emotional crescendo, Elmblad looked in the direction of the coach: his surrogate father, his mentor, his confidant.

The coach, Gordon "Red" Berenson, was and would always be the face of the Michigan hockey program, a program which had given Elmblad, as it had for Fox, something he would have never received anywhere else.

"Thank you, coach," Elmblad said. "For making me a Michigan Man."

Printed from http://www.michigandaily.com on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:52:19 -0400

[Eric Fink]

San Jose Sharks EVP/GM Doug Wilson was a guest on the NHL Hour with Gary Bettman and E.J. Hradek on Thursday. After a grateful dead intro with Patrick Marleau, Wilson discussed the 4th consecutive Pacific Division title, 5th consecutive 100 point season, and 7th straight playoff berth, his decision to hire head coach Todd McLellan 3 years ago and how that decision has helped the franchise, the ups and downs the San Jose Sharks have had this season, Joe Thornton and Logan Couture, and how San Jose has evolved as a hockey market amonth other topics. The program is available for download at NHL.com under the podcast section.

A partial transcript of the interview:

(On the success in San Jose) I think you have to start with a plan. I am very fortunate to work with very good owners that understand the big picture. They let us hire some really good people. The foundation of what we do is drafting and developing, so our coaches down in Worcester, Roy Sommer and David Cuniff, do a great job. I think we have had more players metriculate through our own organization than probably any other team in the league. Tim Burke, who does an amazing job heading our scouting, and then our coaching staff Todd McLellan and his staff. They will integrate young players in. They understand that every player has to be getting better everyday. When you see the first half of the year, our belief is to use our own young players and see if they are up to the task. If they perform, like a Logan Couture, they take a serious role. If not, we send them back down to the minors so they can grow and maybe add some other players like we did this year with a Ben Eager, Kyle Wellwood and Ian White. Everything is about growth, and giving players the tools they need to succeed. Hopefully that is what we need as a team.

(On hiring Todd McLellan 3 years ago) I had never met Todd before I interviewed him. We had gone through the process of interviewing 21 other coaches or people fro our coaching staff. The path that he had taken. Coaching in Swift Current and having success there, coaching in the AHL with Minnesota’s farm team, and then working in the great environment in Detroit with people I have tremendous respect for, Ken Holland, Steve Yzerman to name a couple. When I met him, he was a guy who understood what the expectations would be. He understood bringing young players in and working with them. The thing that really stood out when I watched him, players like Nick Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman Zetterberg and Datsyuk would naturally gravitate towards him. And Chris Chelios, who was there at the time, because of his hockey IQ. Players can read through you very quickly, whether you know what you are talking about or you don’t. When we brought him in an interviewed him, I think within 5 minutes we knew he was going to be the coach we want for our team. He has built great relationships with Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton to name a few. We think he is not only one of the best young coaches, but also one of the top coaches. He has a tremendous staff also that he hand picked.

This is a guy that has been coaching for a long time, even though he was young. I think the first thing he did which I really admired was he started building relationships with players, clarified how he wanted us to play as a team, clarified what each player needed to do to get better. He is brutally honest. That is what the players really want. Players knows that he wants them to succeed, so when he is tough on them, it is because he will get more out of them that way. He has got that combination of details and fundamentals, but also creativity and letting players play to their strengths.

(What did you like/not like about the Sharks during the season) I think we built on a very successful season last year. We played well during the regular season. We had two very good playoff rounds beating Colorado and a really strong Detroit team. Chicago beat us, it was a very good series. It was a short series, but the games were very close. I think we learned from that and wanted to come back this year. We made some changes, with both Niemi and Niittymaki coming in. Rob Blake retired, but I think a lot of his impact on our younger players has certainly shown through. I think the best thing was right around January 17th. We lost 6 games in a row and made a couple of changes, but nobody pointed fingers and none of the coaches blamed anybody else. They also basically said we need to find a solution and get better. Since that point, we have played our best hockey.

(Is this one of the deepest offensive teams with six 20-goal scorers) It is. We have added some veteran guys. The ages our players are now, they are coming into their prime. Our younger guys are certainly stepping up. It goes beyond numbers too. Historically, you look at some of the best players in the league and sometimes they sacrifice their numbers to be better 3 zone players. I will use Joe Thornton as an example. His numbers may be down statistically, but I think he is playing the best hockey I have ever seen him play. When you take a look at how Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and how their game is, not only their +/- but doing the little things to help team’s win, that is a credit to the players and certainly to Todd McLellan who has told them how important that is.

Since (Joe Thornton) has come to this hockey team, he is one of the great players in this game. Here is a kid who I knew when he won at World Juniors, he has won a World Cup, he has won at the Olympics. He loves the challenge of trying to get better every year, and pressure and expectations. He is playing his best hockey, he cares about his teammates. We have a tight group. A sign of a teammate is what you do when you don’t have the puck. They are playing for and with each other, I think that reveals their character.

(Is Logan Couture what you imagined when you drafted him in 2007?) I mentioned a name before, Tim Burke. I am biased, but I think he is the best scout in the business. We are looking for guys with character, and hockey IQ and hockey sense. Logan has really played well. We left him down in Worcester of the AHL last year a little longer to ripen and really become one of the best players down there. You could argue he has been the best player from the beginning of the year until now. I am an old defenseman, I could probably come back and play with him now because he is an easy guy to play with. He comes back and supports you. There are some other really good rookies in the league this year, but I think Logan in regards to all areas of the rink, is probably the top of the list.

(How do you changeup from the regular season to the playoffs) Now that the trade deadline is over, I can’t screw this team up any more. All you can do, and this is where I think Todd McLellan gets it, is prepare for the next game. Stay in the moment. If you win a game, you get ready for the next game. If you lose a game, you get ready for the next game. We know how we want to play. The players understand a lost detail is a lost game. All the little things that have been working for this team since mid-January, and working so well, that is what you try to do. You try to stay healthy. You don’t need guys to try to win games by themselves, you have to stay within the team structure and bring something to the table.

(How has the game changed since you played) I think the guys are bigger and stronger, they are in tremendous shape. Taking a look back to when I played, or even before then, great players would still have success. I think one thing we work on is making sure the game of hockey is the best game it can be. We love tough, honest hockey. The physical aspect on the game, and we have guys who do that on our team like Ryane Clowe and Douglas Murray. When you go back and look at the guys we all respected, the Larry Robinson’s, the Bob Nystrom’s, the Clark Gillies’, the Bob Gainey’s. You can play physical, tough hockey, you can be feared and respected at the same time, but we can also take away some of the things that players can do that are outside of the rules that nobody respects and that could lead to injuries. You try to make the game the best it can be while trying to maintain the safety for the players.

[hockeygod]

Gordie Howe . . . Mr. Hockey.

Gregg Drinnan's Blog April 11 2011

As the NHL playoffs get started, let’s take a look back at Jim Murray's column on the legendary Gordie Howe. Mr. Hockey helped his teams to four Stanley Cup victories. He made an NHL all-star team a whopping 23 times in his nearly four decades of playing.

His list of achievements as a player are monumental:

• Top five in NHL scoring for 20 consecutive seasons
• Most games played for a single franchise (1,687, Detroit Red Wings)
• Most goals and points with a single franchise (786 and 1,809, respectively, Detroit)
• Most NHL games played (1,767)
• Oldest NHL player at time of retirement (52), and oldest player to play in an NHL game, also only player to play in the NHL after age 50
• Only player to play in the NHL in five different decades (1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s)

MARCH 14, 1968 SPORTS
Copyright 1968/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

Here's How to Gordie!

You ask a Canadian about Gordie Howe and the first thing he does is take his hat off and place it carefully over his heart. His eyes film up, this lump comes to his throat, and you get the eerie feeling that Citizen Howe is at least one of the 12 Apostles. He wasn't born, he was found in the bulrushes.

There may be some things Gordie Howe can't do better than anyone else who ever lived, but you have to check through the late pages of the Spalding Guide to find out what it is. I mean to say, no one ever checked him out on skittles, horseshoe pitching, the luge or the kayak pairs competition.

If you do it on ice, he's a mortal cinch. He is, by common consent, the greatest hockey player who ever lived — Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Sandy Koufax, Ty Cobb and Jack Dempsey all rolled into one.

Boxing? He's undefeated, and about 40 lifetime KOs ahead of Cassius Clay. No one ever hollered "Fake!" after one of his fights. How do you fake a broken jaw?

Golf? Well, his game has suffered a little because of an off-season job. Arnold Palmer might have to give him a stroke. He's clear up to a three handicap because of the layoff.

Baseball? Well, he worked out with the Detroit Tigers once and legend has it he drove two starting pitchers into retirement and had three American League managers standing in a puddle of drool.

Fishing? He hooked into the first five sailfish he ever saw and boated all of them. If you're watching "The American Sportsman" on TV one of these weeks, he'll be the one netting all the trout.

He tried skiing last winter. He's not quite as good as Jean-Claude Killy. It took him one whole day before he was skiing the cornices.

He's been on more ice than a polar bear. He's the most durable hockey player who ever lived. He was on an operating table once at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and on the ice at 8 that night. Around the league, they say if Gordie Howe died, he might miss three days. He plays 40 of the 60 minutes of every game and holds the all-time record for games (1,467) and years (22) and goals (682).

He wasn't born on skates but, unlike most babies, he didn't learn to walk, he learned to skate. The first time he put shoes on, he fell down.

He leads the game in everything but penalties. It's not that he's that extraordinarily clean. He's just like an old rubber-hose cop. He knows how to hurt a guy without it showing or getting caught at it.

Now, on the verge of 40 (March 31 he makes it), he's like the old opera singer who doesn't try to break the chandeliers with every not any more. But the younger players still approach him as if he were wired and ticking. He's also like an old slugger who waits for his pitch. He doesn't shoot on a goal until he's close enough to hear the goalkeeper begin to sob. Much of the time he tries to pretend he's just a guy out for a few figure eights in the park on a Sunday afternoon. Then, all of a sudden, he becomes a red blur and lights the red light.

He did it for the Detroit Red Wings against the Kings at the Forum the other night. The Kings had a one-goal lead. There were only 32 seconds left in the period. Everyone relaxed when Gordie Howe went flat on his face. Raising himself thoughtfully to one elbow, he carefully flicked the tying goal past a goalkeeper who acted as if he had just been scored on by a guy in the third-row seats. As the goalie skated disconsolately off, a fan comforted him. "Son, he said, "never take your eyes off Gordie Howe on ice till the coroner tells you." In Canada, they feel even that may be too soon.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

CONCUSSIONS – Freedom from 55-year life expectancy?

RACHEL BRADY From Friday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Apr. 08, 2011

Researchers say they are hard-pressed to find current published medical studies that prove professional football players have a life expectancy of 55 years.

And the author of a 2006 article that startled CFL players last week – citing that a pro football player’s life expectancy is 51 to 55 – says he based his medical opinion article on a conversation with an insurance expert, not a medical study.

“I didn’t get that age from any study,” Michael Arnold Glueck said Thursday from his home in Newport Beach, Calif. “I had an acquaintance who was an insurance writer look up what they had recorded at the time for the average life expectancy for a pro football player for insurance purposes.”

The article, which was published on a number of websites in 2006, was among several articles on the future health of football players passed to members of the CFL Players Association last week at their union meetings in Las Vegas.

The byline states it was written by Glueck and a fellow doctor, Robert J. Cihak, but Glueck confirmed Thursday he wrote it alone. Glueck says he is a retired doctor in the areas of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine, and has not done any research in the area of the life expectancy of athletes.

“That number of 55 has simply never been proven with any data, it has just floated around and been perpetuated by reporters too lazy to back up the facts,” said Chris Nowinski, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, and founder of Sports Legacy Institute, which educates on concussion in sport.

Nowinski is a former Harvard University football player and professional wrestler who retired in 2003 after multiple concussions. He led the investigation that found 44-year-old former NFL star Andre Waters was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, when he committed suicide in 2006.

“Football players should be concerned about a number of health issues, like heart disease, specifically for linemen. Players should worry about arthritis, chronic pain, or neurological disorders,” Nowinski said. “There are certainly anecdotal instances of players dying young from different conditions. But there is no evidence to show football players should expect to die at 55 from some mystery illness.”

There has been an documented link between ex-NFL players and increased cases of Alzheimer’s disease. A 2005 study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found dementia-related syndromes may be initiated by concussions in pro football players. Results of that study were also shown to CFL players last week.

The NFL followed with its own study regarding Alzheimer’s in 2009, conducted at the University of Michigan, and found a similar result.

University of Montreal researcher Louis De Beaumont has studied the effects of concussions. He says symptoms can persist 30 years after a concussion and cause cognitive and motor function problems when an athlete reaches his or her 50s and 60s.

“I think that life expectancy number of 55 for NFL players would still require more study to be supported, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the age is being studied now. Because if doctors have determined a link between NFL players and increased instances of Alzheimer’s and memory problems, the next logical step as a researcher would be to find out the expected age of death,” De Beaumont said.

“Right now, there are studies to support a relationship between concussed athletes and their quality of life in late years, but life expectancy still doesn’t have firm studies.”

In 1997, a study was done by the NFL along with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). It found players are not dying younger than the U.S. life expectancy for males of 72. It did, however, conclude that linemen, due to their bulk, had a rate of heart disease much higher than the general population.

That same year, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution did a two-month mail and phone survey of 250 retired NFL veterans and found 60 per cent of respondents believed football would reduce their life by at least 10 years below that of the average American man. It found many players had even taken a reduced pension at 45, instead of a full one at 55, believing they would not live to see it.

Prior to the NIOSH study, there had been only limited research on life expectancy for pro football players.

Len Teeuws, a former NFL offensive lineman, studied 1,800 players who were in the league for at least five seasons between 1921 and 1959, and found an average lifespan of 61 years.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[DaveM]

True Grit
By Jonah Lehrer
ESPN The Magazine

This story appears in the April 18, 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

The ball is snapped. The quarterback drops back, immediately surrounded by a chorus of grunts and groans, the sounds of linemen colliding. The play has just begun, but the pocket is already collapsing around him. He must focus his eyes downfield on his receivers and know where they're going while also reading the ­defense. Is that cornerback blitzing or dropping back? When will the safety leave the middle? The QB has fewer than three seconds to make sense of this mess. If he hesitates, even for a split second, he'll get sacked.

No other team sport is so dependent on the judgment of a single player, which is why NFL scouts and coaches take the decision-making skills of quarterbacks very seriously. Since the early 1970s, when Cowboys coach Tom Landry began using the Wonderlic intelligence test to evaluate potential Dallas players, the league has included it at the annual scouting combine, to assess every player entering the draft. Basically a short version of an IQ test, the Wonderlic is 12 minutes long and consists of 50 questions, which get progressively harder. The underlying assumption is that players with high scores (read: smarter) will make better decisions in the pocket. If a quarterback can solve pre-algebra problems quickly, then he'll be more likely to find his man while getting blitzed.

At first, this seems like a logical assumption. Just think of all the cognitive skills required to become a successful QB. He needs to memorize hundreds of offensive plays and dozens of defensive formations. He has to study game tape. And, in many instances, quarterbacks are responsible for changing the play at the line of scrimmage. This helps explain why NFL teams start to get nervous whenever the Wonderlic scores of a QB in the draft fall below 24, the unofficial average for the position. (In comparison, the average score for computer programmers is 29 while janitors score 15, a point below running backs.) Scouts believe a quarterback who isn't smart, at least by this measure, won't be able to handle the mental rigors of the game.

There's only one problem with this way of thinking: It's completely wrong. Many of the most successful quarterbacks in NFL history reportedly had subpar Wonderlic results. Donovan McNabb scored a 14 and Brett Favre a 22, while Randall Cunningham, Dan Marino and Terry Bradshaw each scored 15. What's more, several QBs who had unusually high marks — guys like Alex Smith and Matt Leinart, who scored 40 and 35, and were top-10 picks in their respective drafts — have struggled in the NFL, largely because they make poor decisions on the field. "People obsess over the stuff they can measure," says former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Tim Hasselbeck (Wonderlic score: 23). "We spend all this time talking about Wonderlic scores and results from the combine, but those numbers miss most of what's going on."

While they found that Wonderlic scores play a large role in determining when QBs are selected in the draft — the only equally important variables are height and the 40-yard dash — the metric proved all but useless in predicting performance. The only correlation the researchers could find suggested that higher Wonderlic scores actually led to slightly worse QB performance, at least during rookie years.

Consider a recent study by economists David Berri and Rob Simmons. While they found that Wonderlic scores play a large role in determining when QBs are selected in the draft — the only equally important variables are height and the 40-yard dash — the metric proved all but useless in predicting performance. The only correlation the researchers could find suggested that higher Wonderlic scores actually led to slightly worse QB performance, at least during rookie years. In other words, intelligence (or, rather, measured intelligence), which has long been viewed as a prerequisite for playing QB, would seem to be a disadvantage for some guys. Although it's true that signal-callers must grapple with staggering amounts of complexity, they don't make sense of questions on an intelligence test the same way they make sense of the football field. The Wonderlic measures a specific kind of thought process, but the best QBs can't think like that in the pocket. There isn't time.

So how, then, do they make their decisions? Turns out, every pass play is a pure demonstration of human feeling. Scientists have in recent years discovered that emotions, which are often dismissed as primitive and unreliable, can in fact reflect a vast amount of information processing. In many instances, our feelings are capable of responding to things we're not even aware of, noticing details we don't register on a conscious level. Let's say you're given information about how 20 different stocks have performed over a period of time. (Their share prices are displayed on a ticker at the bottom of a TV screen.) If somebody asks you which stocks performed best, you'll probably be unable to give a good answer; there's just way too much financial data to keep track of. But if you're asked which stocks trigger the best feelings — now it's your emotional brain that's being quizzed — you'll suddenly be able to identify the top stocks. According to Tilmann Betsch, the psychologist who performed this experiment, your emotions will "reveal a remarkable degree of sensitivity" to the actual performance of the shares. The investments that rose in value will be associated with the most positive emotions, while those that fell will trigger a vague sense of unease.

This exercise captures why it's so important for quarterbacks to rely on their feelings and not their analytical intelligence. Open targets are associated with the most positive emotions, just like those upward-trending stocks. "QBs are tested on every single pass play," Hasselbeck says. "To be good at the position, you've got to know the answer before you even understand the question. You've got to be able to glance at a defense and recognize what's going on. And you've got to be able to do that when the left tackle gets beat and you're running away from a big lineman. That ability might not depend on real IQ, but it sure takes a lot of football IQ."

How QBs develop a more effective emotional brain is the question teams should be asking. The simple answer: work. Expertise requires lots of effort and repetition. K. Anders Ericsson, a psychologist at Florida State, studies expertise. Ericsson acknowledges the role of genetic gifts (physical and mental skills are not distributed equally at birth), but he believes that the overwhelming majority of expertise is earned. "There is virtually no evidence that expertise is due to genetic or innate factors," Ericsson says. "Rather, it strongly suggests that expertise requires huge amounts of effort and practice." This is because it takes time to train our feelings, to embed those useful patterns into the brain. Before a quarterback can find the open man, parsing the defense in a glance, he must spend years studying cornerbacks and crossing routes. It looks easy only because he's worked so hard.

"I think the willingness to put in the hours is the most important thing for succeeding in the NFL," says Gil Brandt, former Cowboys vice president of player personnel and current draft analyst for NFL.com. "When you look at the best QBs — guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees — what you see is that they work harder than anyone else. Their work ethic is what makes them great."

In recent years, Ericsson has become known for his calculation that true expertise in various fields, from QBs to cello players, requires about 10,000 hours of what he calls "deliberate practice." And deliberate practice is not fun.

It's not casual scrimmages or a game of catch in the backyard. Instead, it's a disciplined attempt to improve specific skills. For a quarterback, this might involve spending the weekend throwing hundreds of footballs through an old car tire while moving to the left or working for months on a few steps of footwork. Consider Peyton and Eli Manning. It would be easy to conclude that the brothers have some yet-to-be-discovered quarterback gene, a snippet of DNA that makes them suited for the pocket. (For what it's worth, Eli reportedly scored 39 on the Wonderlic, Peyton a 28.) In reality, according to Ericsson's model of expertise, the Mannings have excelled in the pros because they began throwing the football as toddlers, racking up hours of deliberate practice at an age when most kids haven't even touched a pigskin. It also didn't hurt that their father, Archie Manning, was a former NFL passer who provided them with invaluable instruction. Peyton and Eli weren't born with the ability to read defenses and throw a perfect spiral. Those "instincts" come only from a lifetime of training.

So, if talent comes from intuition, and reliable intuition comes from practice, then the trait that teams should really be measuring is how recruits practice. And the question they should be asking is, Why are some quarterbacks so much better at getting better? This notion of practice led Ericsson to collaborate with Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Duckworth is best known for her work on grit, a character trait that allows people to persist in the face of difficulty. A few years ago, she was commissioned by the Army to measure the grittiness of cadets at West Point. Although the academy is highly selective, about 5 percent of cadets drop out after the first summer of training, known as Beast Barracks. The Army has long searched for the variables that predict which cadets will graduate, but it wasn't until Duckworth tested them using a short questionnaire — consisting of statements such as "Setbacks don't discourage me" or "I am diligent" — that the Army found a measurement that actually worked. Duckworth has since repeated the survey with subsequent West Point classes, and the results are always the same: The cadets who graduate are the ones with grit.

In a new paper, Duckworth and Ericsson demonstrate that grit doesn't only keep people from dropping out, but it's also what allows them to become experts, to put in the hours of deliberate practice. The researchers tracked 190 participants at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The first thing they discovered is that deliberate practice works. Student spellers who spent more time studying alone and memorizing words with the help of note cards performed much better than kids who were quizzed by friends or engaged in leisure reading. Duckworth and Ericsson also found that levels of grit determined how much the spellers were willing to practice. Grittier kids were able to engage in the most useful kinds of self-improvement, which is why they performed at a higher level. Woody Allen famously declared, "Eighty percent of success is showing up." And grit is what allows you to show up, again and again and again.

"I'd bet that there isn't a single highly successful person who hasn't depended on grit," says Duckworth. "Nobody is talented enough to not have to work hard, and that's what grit allows you to do. It lets you take advantage of your potential." For successful quarterbacks, grit is what allows them to watch hours of game tape on Monday mornings. It lets them remain in the weight room after everyone else has gone home. It's why they can practice the right way, not just the easy way. "In order to become a professional athlete, you need a certain kind of obsessiveness," Duckworth says. "You've got to devote your life to the development of this very narrow expertise. It shouldn't be surprising that this takes lots of grit."

“ In order to become a professional athlete, you need a certain kind of obsessiveness. You've got to devote your life to the development of this very narrow expertise. It shouldn't be surprising that this takes lots of grit.” — U of Penn psychologist Angela Duckworth

The problem for the NFL is that instead of measuring grit, teams still subscribe to an antiquated model of talent and expertise in which innate gifts are presumed to matter the most. The scouting combine requires players entering the draft to perform a number of short physical and mental tasks (40-yard dash, Wonderlic, three-cone drill, bench-press reps, vertical jump) referred to by psychologists as "maximal measurements," since they measure people who are highly motivated to perform for short bursts of time. But to understand why those maximal tests at the combine don't predict performance in the pros, we must return to the nature of expertise. As Ericsson and Duckworth demonstrate, the most important kind of talent, emotional IQ, depends on measurements of sustained performance, on being able to engage in endless amounts of deliberate practice.

"Maybe they say he's too short or too slow or has a weak arm," Brandt says, "but the reality is that if a quarterback has the right work ethic, then he can probably make up for those problems." He points again to Brees, who wasn't drafted until the second round, and Brady, who was ignored until the sixth. "That's because teams have been looking at all the wrong things," Brandt says. "Just because you can measure it doesn't mean it matters."

Measuring grit does matter, but it's not easy. Grit can't be evaluated in a single afternoon; by definition, it's a metric of personality that involves performance over long periods of time. People don't reveal grit at the combine; they show it when no one else is around. "What coaches need is a way to test how players will perform over the entire season," Duckworth says. "Do they have what it takes to make themselves better? Will they benefit from criticism and feedback? If I were a coach, those are the questions I would care about."

So where is all this heading? How will grit become a bigger part of the scouting equation? The first step is to finally acknowledge that maximal tests aren't effective. "I really see the Wonderlic as a reading test," says former NFL executive Michael Lombardi, now with the NFL Network. "Until we get a better test, teams are just going to have to evaluate players the old-fashioned way, by watching them play in actual games. It takes good instincts to be a QB. Maybe it takes good instincts to find one, too."

Hasselbeck suggests that teams pay more attention to the fundamentals of college quarterbacks, since their passing mechanics are often a window into how much grit they possess. "You know these guys have been coached for years," he says. "So if you see a QB with flawed fundamentals, you gotta wonder what's wrong. Is he coachable? Will he work to improve? Because that's important. You can teach a kid to throw the ball, but only if he wants to learn."

After all, deliberate practice makes perfect.

Jonah Lehrer is the author of, most recently, "How We Decide". You can follow him at his personal website, Jonahlehrer.com.

[hockeygod]

College education raises bar for taunts in Vancouver Canucks dressing room

The Canadian Press 2011-04-15

VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Canucks have a very educated dressing room.

And those players will college degrees will tell you their time in the halls of higher learning has resulted in more intellectual exchanges among teammates.

"It goes without saying," defenceman Kevin Bieksa said with a wink. "The conversations are a little more interesting around here. It's not always just pure hockey talk.

"Don't get me wrong. There are still a couple of dummies in this room. Not everyone is interesting. A few guys you stay away from on the road."

Ouch.

Goaltender Roberto Luongo is the highest paid Canuck, earning around US$10 million this season. He never went to college.

"No kidding," deadpanned Bieksa.

So what sort of things occupy the educated Canuck players when they're not concentrating on preparing for Game 2 of their Western Conference quarter-final series with the Chicago Blackhawks, which goes Friday night?

Nuclear fission? Advance calculus? Economics?

"Crossword puzzles," said Bieksa. "Scrabble."

Nine current Vancouver players attending colleges in the U.S.

Bieksa, a native of Grimsby, Ont., went to Bowling Green in Ohio. Goaltender Cory Schneider, of Marblehead, Mass., attended Boston College. Tanner Glass, of Craven, Sask., went to Dartmouth College, an Ivy League school in Hanover, N.H.

"It helps to be a smart guy to understand the game," said Glass. "That's not to say the guys who didn't go to college aren't smart guys."

All the talk about college produced an eye-roll from defenceman Aaron Rome. The Nesbitt, Man., native worked his way into the NHL after playing in the Western Hockey League.

Rome scoffed when asked about Glass's education.

"I sit beside him on the plane," said Rome. "He's probably not the smartest guy, especially for going to an Ivy League school.

"We play Scrabble sometimes. It's embarrassing actually."

Defenceman Keith Ballard, who attended the University of Minnesota, said the other players turn to those with a college degree in emergencies.

"Any problem solving, find a college guy," said Ballard, of Baudette, Min. "He can figure it out."

On a more serious note, players agree going to college has become a more acceptable path to the NHL.

"A while back there was a stigma that college guys didn't translate into good NHL players," said Ballard.

"Since the lockout, there's been an emphasis on speed (and) on skating, which is a huge part of the college game. That is kind of where the game has transcended a little bit."

Smaller players like Brian Gionta of the Montreal Canadiens, Zach Parise of the New Jersey Devils and Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning all came out of college and excelled in the NHL.

"Those guys kind of paved the way," said Ballard. "Guys who have proven you don't need to be a six-foot-two power forward to be successful.

"Now you are seeing (teams) have those smaller, shifty, speedy guys. When you can't clutch and grab in the neutral zone, they are so hard to handle."

Rome said many young players on the fast track tend to play junior hockey.

"For the guys who didn't develop as early, they go the college route," he said. "That's a great route, too.

"It gives you a few extra years to develop. You get lots of practice time in college and you come out a man."

One of the challenges for college players is making an adjustment to the grinding NHL schedule.

"Junior prepares you in the way you play," said Rome. "You get away from home early. You get used to the grind of playing two or three times a week.

"You find out if you want to play right away or you find out if you don't want to play."

Bieksa said the quality of college hockey has improved.

"It's competitive now," he said. "You see a lot more college kids getting drafted.

"The exposure they are getting, you pair that with the education, and it's a no-brainer for me."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Travis Paterson: Salmon Kings’ Slap Shot story

Published: April 14, 2011 Oak Bay News

No matter how many sports reporters reference the epic sports flick Slap Shot, it will never wear thin within the hockey community. Yet few real-life circumstances parallel the greatest hockey movie of all time like the Salmon Kings’ current situation.

Recent reports of the major junior Western Hockey League’s Chiliwack Bruins relocating here for the upcoming season signal the end of the Salmon Kings.

The end of the Johnstown Chiefs, too, was imminent, though player-coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) spun the dire situation into a motivating factor for his team.

And so too are the bottom seed Salmon Kings on a roll now winning the final two games in their first round upset of the No. 2 seed Bakersfield Condors.

Game one of the ECHL Western Conference playoff semifinals is tonight (April 15) against the Utah Grizzlies.

So while the team’s future in Victoria is likely to end, not much will change for the players trying to further their careers with a contract in 2011-12 — be it with the ECHL Florida Everblades or AHL Abbotsford Heat.

And with that I present a cheat sheet for fans jumping on the Salmon Kings’ bandwagon.

Here are a few of the Slap Shot characters and Salmon Kings alter-egos.

Goalie Denis Lemieux:

While playing in the ECHL, David Shantz also takes online courses through McMasters University. Needless to say, the cerebral 25-year-old takes more of a philosopher’s approach to the game, a la Ken Dryden. That said, there is no escaping his Slap Shot equivalent as the Chief’s heavily-accented goalie Denis Lemieux.

• What Lemieux would say about the conditional sale of the WHL Bruins to unnamed owners (despite all fingers pointing to Victoria’s RG Properties):

“Who own da Bruins? Somebody own da Bruins!”

Dave ‘Killer’ Carlson:

The closest personification to Carlson, the meditative youngster who adores Dunlop, might be Tommy Maxwell.

Maxwell has scrapped with the best of them in the AHL, and is one of the toughest hockey players going, period.

But Maxwell’s on-ice discipline is tempered by a desire to win. Sent down from Victoria’s parent club, Maxwell’s humble acceptance as a role-player on an ECHL team mirrors that of Carlson, who finds guidance from the mythical Swami Baha, a meditative and spiritual leader.

• What Maxwell might be muttering while deciding not to clobber an opponent who just gave Salmon Kings’ ace playmaker Rob Hennigar a cheap shot:

“I’m one with the universe, one with the universe.”

Reggie Dunlop:

This one’s a toss-up between coach and general manager Mark Morrison and wily vet Adam Taylor, with Taylor taking the edge.

A healthy scratch on several occasions this season (but not in the playoffs), Taylor made his way to the commentator’s booth for most games.

While on the air, however, Taylor refrained from placing a bounty on an opposing player, which Dunlop famously did in his movie radio spot.

Taylor has, however, played for two Florida-based teams (Pensacola Ice Pilots and Florida Everblades). The idea was floated by Dunlop to local reporter Dickie Dunn to excite the Chiefs.

• What Dunlop said: “They’re gettin’ a bunch of old geezers down there from the northeast … what do you think those old geezers really miss in Florida?”

• What Taylor might have said: “I heard there’s a bunch of diehard hockey fans in Chilliwack … they’ll be looking for a championship ECHL team.”

To paraphrase the words of Ned Braden during a radio promo for his team, “I know a lot of kids would enjoy coming to the games to see (some great hockey players, like Taylor, Maxwell and Shantz) skate.

Tickets to see the Salmon Kings start at just $5.

Travis Paterson is the sports reporter for Black Press papers in Greater Victoria

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

According to plan – ‘Hockey guys’ Johnston, Green continue to build Winterhawks

By Jason Vondersmith

The Portland Tribune, Apr 14, 2011

A self-described “greenhorn,” Mike Johnston has made everything look easy through nearly three seasons of being a general manager and coach in the Western Hockey League.

His Portland Winterhawks, depleted of experienced talent when he took over in late 2008, improved by 48 points last season. Eight players were selected in the 2010 NHL draft, including Ryan Johansen and Nino Niederreiter among the top five, giving Portland 11 players with big-league affiliation.

The Hawks won 50 games and tallied 103 points this season, eclipsing the coveted 100-point barrier for the first time since 1997-98, when Portland won the Memorial Cup – and another trip to junior hockey’s promise land may be in the works. Five more Hawks are on the NHL draft radar, including three who are expected to go in the first round: Sven Bartschi, Joe Morrow and Ty Rattie.

The team’s 50-player protected list has never been better. Last week, the club announced a seemingly ordinary signing of ninth-round bantam draft pick Chase De Leo, a Californian who had other options and therefore slipped to 192nd overall. Johnston, not prone to hype, says of De Leo: “He is going to be an incredible player. Incredible. He could have been a first-rounder, easy. Easy. This guy’s an amazing player.”

But rebuilding the Hawks hasn’t been easy, says the 54-year-old Johnston, a teacher by education and a coaching guru by profession. Even with his vast experience, Johnston had never been part of junior hockey or been in the WHL. Backed by committed owner Bill Gallacher of Calgary, everything has fallen into place for Johnston and assistant GM/coach Travis Green.

When he came to Portland, Johnston consulted with notable coaches and friends Don Hay of Vancouver, Willie Dejardins of Medicine Hat and Danny Flynn of Moncton, New Brunswick, about how to run a successful junior program. But much of the Hawks’ success stems from an article Johnston read in Hockey News in summer 2008, as Gallacher bought the Hawks and recruited Johnston and Green. The article was about Ken Holland, general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, and how the NHL club was built into a powerhouse. A summation: Patience with homegrown players and a “committed owner.”

A copy of the article still sits on Johnston’s desk.

“We were really careful,” Johnston says, of how he guided the Hawks in 2008-09 and opted not to part with the likes of defenseman Travis Ehrhardt and goalie Kurtis Mucha. “We had to get to know the league, and the scouting staff had to be revamped, which Garry Davidson did for us.

“For Travis and I, we were greenhorns. I still feel like I’m a novice general manager in this league. I’m trying to keep my head above water and get to a point where I feel like I know the league and the players. I knew I’d be challenged in the coaching area, but I’d be even more challenged in the general manager area.

“We stuck to the plan of being patient and developing our own kids, and that’s the framework in how we’re going to operate. We’re going to run a classy, pro program and put our efforts into developing kids.”

On cue, Johnston felt more comfortable with not only his abilities, but also the roster after two good bantam drafts by previous management. The organization’s handling of players and matters off the ice soon improved greatly, after things had unraveled under previous ownership. And the Hawks were able to recruit the likes of Johansen, Niederreiter and Taylor Aronson, in part by convincing parents that the team had put more emphasis on school, billets and accommodations.

“If we hadn’t done a good job behind the scenes, if people hadn’t heard Portland had changed and was a good destination where you could send your kid to be well taken care of,” Johnston says, “we wouldn’t have got those kids.”

As captain Brett Ponich puts it: “The better we’re feeling, the better we play, right?”

Top of the list

After what Johnston calls “a very good” bantam draft, the Hawks were off and, er, skating. A team that had sunk to the bottom of WHL in 2007 and 2008 rose to elite status. The Portland roster that took the ice for the ongoing second-round WHL playoff series against Kelowna had only one player who wasn’t listed or drafted by the team: Craig Cunningham, who was acquired in a trade.

“We’re not naive to sit here and say it’s always going to be roses,” says Green, 40, the former player component (WHL alum, 14-year NHL player) to Johnston’s coaching experience behind the bench. “We both know we’ve been really fortunate to be where we are. We didn’t sit behind closed doors and say, ‘We’re going to be here or there’ in three years.

“We never even talk about beyond next week. You put in the work, go through the process, and at end of the day things will take care of themselves. It’s not a four-hour or 10-hour day for us, it’s a 24/7 job for Mike and I. I’ll send Mike a note sometimes at 2 o’clock in the morning, or vice versa. We’re both passionate about what we do. It’s what we are. Hockey guys.”

Johnston has been nominated for WHL executive of the year. It’d be one thing, had Johnston been nominated for coach of the year, but …

“Outside of coaches in the NHL, Mike Johnston, for me, would be right at the top of the list,” Green adds. “You talk about a guy who understands the game, seen a lot, coached many years at the NHL level, a career coach. Just to be able to work with him daily and see his work ethic has been invaluable to me. You can’t put a price tag on it.”

Unbelievable teacher

Born in Nova Scotia, Johnston got a teaching degree, but somebody offered him a coaching job first. He took it, and he hasn’t looked back. He enjoyed collegiate success, including during five seasons at the University of New Brunswick. He became involved with Team Canada and served in various coaching capacities on national teams, including his work behind the bench as an assistant in the 1996 Winter Olympics. His NHL’s tenures came as associate head coach with Vancouver (1999-2006) and Los Angeles (2006-08).

Johnston has done coaching seminars across the world, having co-authored the book, “Simply The Best – Insights and Strategies From Great Hockey Coaches.” But he continues to learn. One time he asked Scotty Bowman, maybe the NHL’s preeminent all-time coach, his secret to success. Bowman’s response: “Have a committed owner. A guy who’s interested, making sure things are done the right way, not cutting corners.”

Still, the top guy on the hockey side has to do his part. Johnston’s done it, and he credits part of his success to ongoing advice from former Hawk exec Ken Hodge.

“Mike’s a great speaker –it’s no wonder he gets asked to run coaching seminars all over the world, even with NHL coaches,” says Matt Bardsley, the Wilson High grad who stuck after the exodus of the previous Winterhawk regime. “Everybody knows where they stand with Mike. He sells the program and stands behind the program. He’s not a car salesman.

“As a coach, he’s an unbelievable teacher, able to translate the game. I’ve seen him in rooms talking to players or prospects, and he’s such a motivating speaker. It has a big impact on a kid.

“Mike has been incredible in every aspect –management, coaching, community, media, scouts, contacts with NHL people.”

Adds Ponich: “With Mike, it’s all about reputation. He’s one of the most professional individuals I’ve ever met in how he treats people and players, how he coaches the team. He’s never too high or too low.”

Coach in the NHL

Green, meanwhile, has made the oft-rough transition to coach from being an NHL player, learning the trait of patience from Johnston in dealing with players and coaching, and appreciating the intangible of work ethic. It has been his plan to be a coach since he turned 30.

“He’s fully prepared to be a head coach in our league,” Johnston says, of Green. “I also think he’s poised to be a great assistant or associate coach in the NHL.”

Says Green: “I want to coach at the NHL level one day. In saying that, I don’t know if there’s a rush to that. If you take steps too quickly, you can be in trouble. I’m learning a lot every day (with Johnston). It’s very enjoyable.”

Johnston also has high praise for Bardsley and assistant coach Kyle Gustafson, another local from Gresham. He knows Bardsley wants to be a general manager someday, and he has worked to get Gustafson a spot with USA Hockey.

For Johnston, an NHL head coaching opportunity might arise. He had inquiries about a couple NHL associate jobs after last season, but he kept his promise to Gallacher to stay with the Hawks for three years at least.

What if he’s offered an NHL head coaching job?

“That’s always been a goal of mine,” he says. “It’s been a goal of mine to win a Stanley Cup. Every kid in Canada wants to do that. If I do it as a head coach or in management, that’s still my goal.

“But, back to being a head coach (in juniors), I can have an impact on our organization and destiny as a team. I’ve enjoyed it so much, I haven’t even thought about (the NHL).”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

NHL players who ignore concussion symptoms pay a steep price: U of C study

Largest concussion study ever conducted in professional hockey

By Vicki Hall, Calgary Herald April 18, 2011

Hockey players may think they’re taking one for the team by soldiering on through a concussion, but the numbers tell a different story.

According to a landmark University of Calgary study published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, 27 per cent of National Hockey Leaguers who play in spite of a concussion – for whatever reason, without in-game medical examination – ended up missing more than 10 days of action.

On average, concussed players recuperated for six days before receiving medical clearance to return to the lineup.

“That’s what the data shows,” says lead author Dr. Brian Benson, a researcher and physician at the Sport Medicine Centre in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Kinesiology.

“Those players who ignore the symptoms and continue to play may potentially have a more severe injury and take longer to recover.

“We need to educate all involved in the sport — including players, coaches, management, physicians, medical staff. Certainly, the players should report symptoms to the medical staff and not continue to play while symptomatic.”

The warning comes during the opening round of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs minus Sidney Crosby, who is believed to have suffered a concussion in the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day. The Pittsburgh Penguins captain — arguably the best player on the planet — absorbed another head blow in his next game and hasn’t played since.

“That’s a sure sign of how early on in understanding post-concussion we really are,” says Keith Primeau, a 14-year NHL veteran who was forced to retire due to post-concussion syndrome. “Crosby was not diagnosed with a concussion. At the time, he didn’t show signs of a concussion or he felt well enough to ignore them. And then he returned to play and has ended up missing four months on a far less physical hit.

“It’s nobody’s fault. No one made a mistake. We just don’t completely understand the injury.”

In a more recent example of players soldiering on after tough head hits, during Sunday night's game between the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks, Raffi Torres delivered a controversial shoulder-to-head hit on Brent Seabrook.

Seabrook took two more shifts after the Torres collision and was hit two more times before leaving to be assessed under the league's new concussion protocol.

The U of C researchers — in conjunction with the NHL and the NHL Players Association – compiled reports from every team doctor in the league from 1997 to 2004 in the largest concussion study ever conducted in professional hockey.

Post-lockout data from 2006 to 2011 is slated for release later this year.

In practical terms, researchers found four warning signs at the time of the head trauma that lead to extended time on the sidelines: headache, amnesia or memory loss, low energy or fatigue and an abnormal neurological exam.

“Concussion severity to date has only been able to be determined after the injury is fully recovered,” Benson says. “You look back in time and you say, `OK, they missed this much time lost.’ The symptoms lasted this long.

“This study is unique, because it adds a prognostic factor with regards to concussion severity at the time of injury.”

Just last month, the NHL instituted a new protocol for head injuries. Players suspected of having a concussion are removed from the game and sent to a quiet place free from distraction so the on-site team doctor can examine them.

In the past, the trainer or a doctor on the bench initially evaluated a player suspected of having sustained a concussion.

“The league now has the rule where every suspected concussion needs to be evaluated by the medical staff,” Benson says. “If they highlight or note any of these factors, certainly the red flag should go up.”

Primeau applauds the researchers for pinpointing the four symptoms, but warns against players feeling they are OK if they have no headache, memory loss, fatigue or an abnormal neurological exam.

“I wouldn’t disagree with the fact those are four very common symptoms,’ he says. “But I also know through the course of my ordeal – and speaking to other players who suffered post-concussion – that no two concussions are alike.

“We shouldn’t negate other symptoms, I think that would be dangerous.”

Other highlights of the study include:

— The number of reported concussions actually dropped during the study period from 7.7 concussions per 100 players during the 2001-02 season to 4.9 per 100 players in 2003-04.

— The number of days lost per concussion increased slightly over the seven-year period. “That can be for several reasons,” Benson says. “Either the injury itself is getting more severe or team physicians are being more conservative in their management. There’s some speculation and suggestion that players are bigger, stronger and faster — and the increased force is transmitted to the brain. It’s all speculative, but certainly a possibility.”

— Concussions do indeed get worse over time. For every recurrent concussion sustained over the study period, a player faces 2.25 increase in time lost. “I lived that,” says Primeau, who battled on for the Philadelphia Flyers after suffering two concussions in the 2004 playoffs, only to miss 73 games the following season. “Trust me. You don’t want to wake up every morning with a headache. It’s not a good feeling, and it’s real. I guess I’ll always know that I damaged my brain.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Concussion dodging real head-shaker
Athletes altering base-line testing playing with fire

First posted: Saturday, April 23, 2011 Steve Macfarlane, Calgary Sun

As the hockey world awaits the return of Sidney Crosby, disturbing news comes out of the football realm.

You’d think they’d know better by now just from the long-term effects of concussions on their own sport’s legends, or that they could learn from the men on ice and see athletes such as Crosby and Marc Savard sitting out long periods of time because of head trauma.

But, no, there’s talk NFL players are actually skewing tests on purpose in the pre-season so if they suffer concussions during the year, no one will notice.

A doctor who has treated NFLers past and present for post-concussion symptoms told Fox Sports’ Alex Marvez some players aren’t co-operating when it comes to establishing grounds for their own safety.

How?

By intentionally sabotaging the baseline test that tackles things such as memory, concentration, cognitive thinking and balance.

“Players are smart. They know that if they have a concussion and score badly that, ‘I’m going to be taken out. It’s going to affect my
livelihood,’ ” Dr. Daniel Amen told Marvez.

“I’ve had a number of players tell me they purposely do bad on the testing to start so if they get a concussion it doesn’t affect them.
“We need to educate them that this is a really dumb idea, that it’s the rest of their life that they’re playing with.”

Just ask Crosby, who apparently wasn’t convinced he’d suffered a first concussion in the Winter Classic Jan. 1 and continued to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

A second blow to the head a few nights later has forced him out of almost four months of action with no timetable set for a return.

He’s been skating and practising without contact for weeks but still hasn’t been cleared by doctors to attempt a comeback.

“If you were under the impression that he was moving closer … he’s got to pass the next stage of what he can do,” Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week. “That has not happened yet.”

Don’t hold your breath, either, because Crosby is smart enough now not to risk what could be another decade of dominance in the NHL just to enjoy a few weeks of playoff hockey.

Some of those dummies in the NFL should follow his example.

But it gets worse than just the alleged admission some are flubbing tests on purpose so they can play while woozy later.

Footballers, according to an online story on BeyondChron — a San Francisco news website — have also turned to drugs to improve mental focus before one of those tests created to gauge their brain function after injury.

“Ritalin will work,” said Amen, who founded the Amen Clinic and began treating retired NFL players with brain damage in the late 1990s.

“It helps boost activity to the front part of the brain.

“In my mind, it’s not the first thing I would do to rehabilitate a concussion, but it would be on the list of things to do.

“Clearly, it’s not approved by the NFL or a smart thing to do and try to cheat the test.”

As much as professional leagues are trying to prevent concussions, or at least stop their players from suiting up in spite of them, it’s up to the players to be smart enough to protect themselves.

And maybe some of them have already taken too many blows to the head for that.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

What if Sid the Kid can't play anymore?

Sun May 1, 2011 Gregg Drinnan

The NHL playoffs are well into Round 2 and, really, the story of the little green men isn’t the biggest story.

No. The biggest story of these playoffs, perhaps of any playoff, occurred Friday. It just didn’t get the attention that a major story deserves. After all, there were games to be played that night and on the weekend.

It was on Friday when Sidney Crosby, who had been working to get back in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ lineup since suffering a concussion in early January, revealed that he had suffered a setback the previous week. It forced him, he said, to take a step back.

On the blog of Globe and Mail hockey writer James Mirtle, Crosby is quoted as having said:

“It’s more frustrating. My expectation probably wasn’t that I’d play (during these playoffs), but I was just trying to make sure that if there was any chance that it was possible to come back that I was ready and that I’d done everything I could to be ready. It’s frustrating, disappointing. But I can’t really control any of that.

“All I can control is what I was doing off the ice in trying to rehab and all that stuff. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.”

And just like that — “Unfortunately it didn’t work out” — the greatest player in today’s hockey world stepped back into the shadows.

His Penguins have been eliminated from the playoffs so the glare of the spotlight won’t find him perhaps until late August.

By now you’ve seen the hits Crosby’s noggin absorbed. First, on Jan. 1, he took a blindside hit from Dave Steckel of the Washington Capitals. Then, four days later, defenceman Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning hit Crosby, whose head appeared to strike the glass.

Neither one of the hits was particularly vicious. In fact, the Penguins say he felt fine after the first check and that it wasn’t until after the second one that Crosby began to feel that something wasn’t right. Crosby hasn’t played since the Hedman hit, but it isn’t known if either of the hits caused a concussion, or if it was a combination. And such is the mystery of brain injuries — every brain is different and, as such, there always are a lot of unanswered questions in terms of cause, effect and healing time.

When he left the game, Crosby had 66 points, including 32 goals, in 41 games. Without the injury, you can forget the Hart Trophy discussion because it belonged to him.

He started out day-to-day. Now, however, he hasn’t played in four months. And, really, who is to say his career won’t feel a long-term impact?

In fact, what if Sid the Kid doesn’t play again?

If Crosby doesn’t feel well enough to start next season, and that is five months away, might that be the impetus to put concussion awareness over the top?

Because it has become as evident as the nose on your face that the time has come for action, particularly in leagues and organizations that deal with young people. That action has to deal with preventing concussions, as opposed to treating them. The medical evidence is mounting that one concussion is one too many.

If you missed it, researchers said Monday that the brain of former NFL player Dave Duerson showed damage. The evidence was “indisputable,“ said Dr. Ann McKee, an expert in the field of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).

Duerson, a former NFL defensive back, committed suicide on Feb. 17. After preparing a note asking that his brain go to the NFL “brain bank,” he shot himself in the chest. Duerson, who retired in 1993, was just 50 years of age.

“Dave Duerson had classic pathology of CTE and no evidence of any other disease,” McKee said, “and he has severe involvement of all the (brain) structures that affect things like judgment, inhibition, impulse control, mood and memory.”

In the U.S., most of the focus on concussions is falling on football, and rightfully so.

In an op-ed piece in USA TODAY last week, Katherine Chretien, an associate professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., wrote that “football will always be engrained in the fabric of our country, but can we make it a sport that limits long-term brain damage of its players? The brains of our children and the future love of the game are depending on it.”

Earlier, she had pointed out that CTE “might not be limited to professional level play. It probably starts much earlier. The question is when? At what age?”

And those are the $64,000 questions when it comes to young people and sports. Research has shown that while repetitive collisions in practices and during games may not result in concussions there still may be damage done. In many instances, rest will help the brain heal; what isn’t known is at what point the damage becomes permanent.

Today, the only way to test for CTE is for researchers to examine a brain, meaning someone has to have died. The key, then, is to work to prevent concussions.

The CFL will hold a news conference today and the topic of conversation is expected to be concussion awareness. You just know that this subject is on the mind of every football player in North America.

Yesterday, on TSN radio, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, according to a tweet from TSN’s Darren Dreger, acknowledged “concern over head hits and concussion issues in the NHL. Says the sport in general needs to do more.”

He is correct. But while it is important that hockey at all levels do more in terms of concussion treatment, it is imperative that it also work to prevent concussions.

After all, the concussion that doesn’t happen doesn’t need treatment, nor does it result in today’s athlete slurring his or her words later in life.

(Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca, gdrinnan.blogspot.com and twitter.com/gdrinnan.)

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Keith Primeau puts mind to educating youngsters

DAVID SHOALTS
Toronto— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, May. 04, 2011

Keith Primeau and Kerry Goulet did not take up their crusade to educate people about concussions to make the NHL a safer place.

They are aiming at a much younger audience because they know if children are educated properly, one day the NHL will be a safer place to play. Much safer than it is now, with more than 80 players diagnosed with a concussion in this season alone, and safer than it was in 2005, when Primeau’s NHL career ended at 34 after yet another concussion.

“I told Kerry when we got into this, don’t plan on having that kind of impact [with the NHL],” Primeau said Wednesday at the launch of stopconcussions.com, an educational resource about concussions for athletes at all levels and all sports.

“The fight is a good fight at the youth level,” Primeau said. “Whatever happens at the National Hockey League level happens there, it’s not for me to say. But what we have is the ability to impact our children and that’s important.”

Primeau and Goulet, who played professional hockey in Germany, already developed a program called Play It Cool Hockey, which works with minor hockey groups to reduce concussions and spinal injuries. Their goal is to create education and prevention programs for football, soccer, baseball and lacrosse.

“Just consider us the 7-11 of concussions,” Goulet said. “We’re going to be 24-7 on concussions.”

Much of the education will be aimed at parents, Primeau said. His own experience in coaching his 11- and 13-year-old sons in the Philadelphia area shows that too often it is the parents pushing to have their children put back in the game after suffering a head injury.

“What becomes difficult at that level is the parent,” Primeau said. “They grew up in the same frame I did. It’s just a bump on the head, you’ll be okay, get back out there.”

The biggest problem with concussions is simple ignorance, he added. Even doctors admit they know relatively little about them, so it was no surprise to him when the NHL’s biggest star, who missed the rest of the season after suffering a concussion on Jan. 5, called him for advice.

“Basically, what I told him was make sure you are 100 per cent before you go back,” Primeau said, recalling his advice for Sidney Crosby.

Former NHLer Mike Van Ryn is now an assistant coach with the Niagara IceDogs of the Ontario Hockey League. He says junior players are slowly changing the way they play, looking less and less to make hits to the head if only because the OHL has a stiff penalty against them.

However, much work needs to be done in minor hockey, Van Ryn says, because he sees too many players come into the OHL conditioned to make big hits. Part of it is a legacy of the improvements in equipment in the 1970s that made players feel invincible and part is the increased speed in the game that followed the NHL’s move to a faster game after the 2004-05 lockout.

“I don’t know it’s so much that [the players] are looking for heads,” Van Ryn said. “But there a lot of arms up high, sticks up high. They’re definitely hitting high. The athletes are like missiles now. They’re so much faster, so much stronger. Everybody is hitting with such velocity injuries are bound to happen.”

Like Goulet and Primeau, Van Ryn believes educating the youngsters will pay off at higher levels of hockey.

What troubles Primeau is that the attraction of playing in the NHL is such that athletes are still willing to risk their brains to make the big time.

“I’m most upset with myself,” he said. “Even if I knew then what I know now, I can’t say I would change my course.”

That course left him with a legacy of pain and fear. Primeau said it took five years for the symptoms of his last concussion to ease and it was only in the last three or four months that he could enjoy long stretches without headaches and exercise again. But he still wonders about the possibility of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and a premature death.

“The last four or five months I’m in a much better place than I was the last five years,” he said. “But even now, not a day goes by when I’m not reminded I damaged my brain.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Primeau wants to end concussion epidemic

By Mike Ganter, Toronto Sun, May4, 2011

Former NHLer Keith Primeau joined other athletes for the launch of – http://www.stopconcussions.com – devoted to concussions information at the Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto on Wednesday May 4, 2011.

Keith Primeau doesn’t have a few reasons to jump into this concussion epidemic the world is sports is immersed in.

He has dozens, even hundreds when you really consider it.

There are the four documented concussions he personally suffered that prematurely ended his NHL career. Those alone would suffice but Primeau, the former Detroit Red Wing and Philadelphia Flyer, isn’t doing this for himself.

His concussions have already taken their toll and will continue to do so. He knows that and accepts it. The headaches and vision problems that come and go are a constant reminder.

Another few good reasons are his youngest sons who are 11 and 13 and who he coaches in Philadelphia. He wants them — and the 13 or so other kids on those teams that he feels personally responsible for — to avoid what he has gone through. Primeau doesn’t want any of them or any other kid to suffer what he did and what he continues to suffer due to those concussions.

It is for these reasons and all those others that Primeau has teamed up with Kerry Goulet — a fine hockey player in his own right who has had his own war with concussions and the depression those concussions brought about while playing hockey in Germany — to create stopconcussions.com, an information network for just about everything concussion-related.

They unveiled the program Wednesday at the Hockey Hall of Fame with some help from other former and current sports professionals including former NHLers Mike Van Ryn and Jim Thompson, National women’s team hockey gold medallist Tessa Bonhomme, former Saskatchewan Roughriders and future Chicago Bears receiver Andy Fantuz, and former men’s national team soccer player Jason De Vos.

All were there to help get the word out about stopconcussions.com. It is for the players who sustain concussions, the parents looking for answers about managing them, the coaches and trainers who have to deal with them and even the medical people who treat them.

Eventually, Primeau and Goulet hope to change the mindset in sports that lauds the kind of hit that leaves a guy lying motionless on the ice or on the field. They want to change the thinking that says it’s an act of courage to shake off a hit to the head and “get back in the game.”

It’s a tall order and both men know it, but the alternative — doing nothing and watching more and more young athletes fall victims to the unknowns of a concussion like they both experienced — is just too painful for either man.

Primeau knows what needs to be changed. He’s seen it first-hand while coaching his sons.

“The parent who when their kid gets hit and I have him sitting on the bench, comes and taps on the glass behind me and says ‘Get him back out there,’ ” Primeau says. “And here I am still waiting to assess whether he’s in a position to return to play because it’s not that important to me that he get right back on the ice.”

Goulet, whose second concussion landed him in a depression that without extensive medical rehab could have cost him his life, believes recent events — from the Mikhail Grabovski apparent concussion after which he re-entered the game to score the winning goal in February to the back-to-back concussions suffered by Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby — have brought the issue to a head.

“I believe we’ve reached a tipping point,” Goulet said. “Sidney Crosby (and his decision to sit out the Penguins playoff games) I believe helped tremendously. But I’ve been working on this for five years and really until the Grabovski hit we weren’t taken as seriously. We were shunned a little bit because people thought we wanted to take the physicality out of the sport. Nobody wants that. What we want to do is say, “Listen. You have to play smart. You have one brain and if it’s broken it’s not coming back. All we’re asking people to do is educate themselves and establish the way you are going to play the game and how you can play hard.”

As Goulet said, “There are just far too many kids going to bed tonight with concussions that are undiagnosed.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

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