Top neuroscientists have accused the National Hockey League of ‘blatantly denying’ the game’s supposed deadly effects – after two players died in just one week from suspected brain injuries.
Former NHL star Chris Simon was found to have committed suicide earlier this week as a result of a fight with fatal brain damage. The reports came just days after the suicide of former Pittsburgh Penguins player Konstantin Koltsov.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Dr Chris Nowinski, a neuroscientist and founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, described hockey players as ‘boxers on the ice’, referring to the impact the sport would have on the risk of degenerative brain injury.
Studies have suggested that each additional year of hockey can increase the risk of brain damage by about 23 percent.
At least ten hockey players have died in as many years. Although it has not been confirmed that Koltsov (above right) had CTE, given his career it is possible and could have played a role in his suicide.
Dr. Nowinski told this website that the science on whether the game is responsible for the fatal injuries is “black and white.”
“It is shameful that the NHL does not accept this obvious fact.”
At least 10 NHL players have died due to brain damage in the past decade – and campaigners say all cases are linked to damage suffered on the ice.
NHL leadership has stood firm in its position despite the increasing number of former sports stars who have become “victims” of a certain condition that can lead to dementia called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
CTE is caused by repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries. The impact on the skull is thought to cause the gradual build-up of a protein called tau in the nerve cells of the brain.
Over time, this affects the cells’ ability to communicate with each other, leading to a range of problems, including memory problems, confusion, personality changes and erratic behavior, including depressive or suicidal behavior.
The condition cannot be diagnosed until the patient dies during an autopsy. But it has been confirmed to have contributed to the deaths of 15 former NHL players.
An example is Hall of Famer and 11-time Stanley Cup winner Henri Richard, who died in 2020 at the age of 84 and was posthumously diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease.
The NHL has resisted pressure from doctors to re-examine concussion protocols as evidence mounts that ice hockey players are as susceptible to CTE as professional football players.
The league, for its part, has failed to acknowledge that CTE among its players is a real problem. Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, said Wednesday: “I think the science is still inaccurate.”
Chris Simon, who died by suicide, is believed to have suffered from CTE, which is known to cause mood and behavioral disorders
Konstantin Kolstov, a former player for the Pittsburgh Penguins, died by suicide this week. It is not clear whether he had CTE, something that can only be diagnosed postmortem
The NHL is significantly behind the National Football League (NFL), which in 2016 finally recognized an existing association between football and CTE, and updated its concussion protocol with the goal of making the game safer.
Dr. Nowinski said, “It’s sad to see how their denial slows down the conversation about helping these former players and preventing CTE in current players. The opportunity is right in front of us (to make the game safer), and yet people continue to die.
“And they don’t get the respect and recognition for what they went through, which was caused by the game they played.”
He added: “No one doubts that boxing causes CTE. And the NHL is the only hockey league in the world where people can box on skates.”
Chris Simon was known in hockey as an enforcer; a player who is ready at a moment’s notice to take to the rink and literally fight for his teammates. It involves bare-knuckle brawls and blows to the head.
A statement following his suicide, issued by Simon’s former agent, Paul Theofanous, on behalf of the family, said: “The family believes and has seen first-hand Chris’s tremendous struggles with CTE, which unfortunately led to his death.”
CTE can creep in gradually after a person has suffered a concussion for years and initially presents as behavioral changes, including aggression and violent outbursts, as well as problems thinking and remembering things clearly.
It has a range of other manifestations, including impaired motor coordination, Parkinson’s-like tremors, difficulty walking, depression, apathy and substance abuse.
However, it is also possible that CTE is not the cause of the behavioral and personality changes from which Mr. Simon suffers, but rather a different type of traumatic brain injury.
Thirteen-year veteran and league enforcer nicknamed Knuckles since his youth, Chris Nilan, 66, dealt with substance abuse and addiction issues for years, as well as anger issues after leaving the sport in 1992. He is now the subject of research into the condition by scientists at Boston University (BU).
Because CTE cannot be diagnosed until a person has died, researchers perform extensive testing while they are still alive. Once Mr. Nilan dies, his brain will be donated to medical research.
The BU center published findings last year that contradicted the NHL’s orthodoxy that the sport they play results in CTE.
Researchers there found that each additional year of hockey can increase a person’s chance of developing CTE by about 23 percent.
Dr. Jesse Mez, MD, study author and BU CTE Center Investigator, said: ‘Previous research has shown a link between increasing years of playing football and the increased likelihood of later developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and our results suggest that the same applies to ice cream. hockey.’
A brain with advanced CTE (photo right) appears shriveled. As tau proteins build up and brain cells die, the brain’s volume decreases and shrinks
The study involved the brains of 74 amateur and professional hockey players. Of the 74 donors – 19 of whom played professionally – 40 of them, or 54 percent, were diagnosed with CTE at autopsy.
At the same time, the NHL isn’t convinced. League commissioner Gary Bettman said NPR: ‘We listen to medical opinions on CTE, and I do not believe there has been any documented research to suggest that elements of our play result in CTE. There have been isolated cases of players who have played the game (who) have had CTE. But that doesn’t mean it necessarily comes from playing in the NHL.”
Scientists have long suspected that years of mild traumatic brain injuries, such as concussions, dramatically increase the risk of developing CTE.
Dr. Nowinski said, “We don’t know how long it takes to develop CTE. We have seen in football studies that the longer you play, the greater your risk, and we have shown in studies trying to understand the number and power of hits that it appears that CTE risk is most closely linked is with the number and strength of the hits. force of blows to the head.
‘It is possible to get it in a short time, but that is rare. We just don’t know how short that is.’
A 2012 study published in the journal Brain all but confirmed this, when researchers found that of 85 people with a history of repetitive mild traumatic brain injury, 68 of them – almost all of whom played sports – showed signs of CTE.
CTE diagnoses are divided into three categories: stage one, stage two, stage three and stage four. Those in the first stage typically experience short-term memory loss, mild aggression, and/or depression.
Those in stage two are likely to experience severe depression, violent outbursts and mood swings. In stage three, a person is likely to experience aggression, apathy, memory loss, impaired executive functioning and problem-solving skills.
Stage four is a more severe stage than the previous one, including paranoia, language problems and irregular muscle movements.
Henri Richard was in stage three CTE when he died last year. Some of the other hockey players who have fallen victim to CTE in the past decade include Dan Maloney, who died in 2018 at age 68, Zarley Zlapsk, who died in 2017 at age 49, and Steve Motnador, who died in 2015 at the age of 35. , Marke Svatos, who died in 2016 at the age of 34, Ralph Backstrom, who died in 2021 at the age of 83, and Stan Mikita, who died in 2018 at the age of 78.
“Those are the commonly known cases,” Dr. Nowinski said.
“The difference between the hockey data and the NFL data is that over 400 NFL players have been diagnosed with CTE… But there was a study that showed at least 10% of NFL players had CTE. And it is probably much higher.
He added, “We don’t have the same data on NHL players who don’t have the same insight… It may be more prevalent in this population than we would like.”