She remembers the collision with another player, the fall to the ice, the feeling of dizziness. Skating shakily to the bench, she told her coach she had a concussion.
“How do you know?” the coach asked.
“Because I've had them before,” Jessica Raymond replied.
For the minor hockey player, it was her fifth concussion, bringing with it months of nausea, headaches and dizziness – and an acute awareness that head injuries hardly afflict pros alone.
“With minor sports, people don't always think about concussions,” said Ms. Raymond, 19, of Waterloo, Ont. “So many people don't know how serious they are.”
In the National Hockey League, a spate of recent injuries has rammed the issue of head shots to the top of the agenda at the general managers' meeting this week in Boca Raton, Fla.
But an estimated 10 per cent of minor hockey players suffer concussions each year, and many more are sustained on soccer pitches, toboggan hills and other sporting venues. Experts say the country is not doing nearly enough to stop it.
As a coach, I think the players want to return to playing, so they give their word they are feeling better – 'I'm fine, I can play' – when in reality you don't feel fine. — Kim McCullough, director of Total Female Hockey
It's a different story in the United States. Washington and Oregon have passed concussion-specific laws for scholastic sports – moves that came after tragedies in which players were killed or severely injured in games – and more states are expected to follow. They mandate education for high-school coaches, immediate removal from play of any athlete suspected of a concussion and proper medical clearance before an athlete can return to play youth sports.
A prominent expert in concussions, Maryse Lassonde, says the same laws should be passed in Canada, where efforts so far have focused on educating the public. While she notes that more rigorous practices exist at the professional level and in some university sports, that is not the case for younger players who are particularly vulnerable.
“A life can be broken, especially young ones,” said Prof. Lassonde, who holds a Canada Research Chair at the University of Montreal and is a neuropsychologist for the Montréal Canadiens. “They should be aware of that.”
Her group published a study recently in the journal Brain showing impairments in movement and thinking skills in otherwise-healthy retired athletes can be seen 30 years or more after suffering one or two concussions. The problems are similar to those found in patients with early dementia.
“Schools and sports teams are all built around rules,” said Patrick Donohue, founder of the New-York-based Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, which has been pushing for legislative change across the U.S. “So until you make it a rule or a law, it's not going to have the same type of impact.”
Kim McCullough, director of Total Female Hockey and a coach at the high-school and midget level in Toronto, said most coaches do not have any formal training on concussion. They sometimes mistakenly believe a player has to black out to have one, she said. Even when concussions are diagnosed, the problem is knowing when to let the player return to action.
“As a coach, I think the players want to return to playing, so they give their word they are feeling better – 'I'm fine, I can play' – when in reality you don't feel fine,” said Ms. McCullough, who teaches at concussion clinics. She said it is important for players to know how to take a hit properly and how to protect themselves on the ice.
