Wade Belak found dead - from calgary sun

[mattola]

i would like a study down without media influence. lets the teams, league and players work together to look deep into it without the media looking for every little piece that they can run with. then make it transparent when the study is complete with the recommendations

 

[Comeds]

Whatever side you are on about fighting, or in the middle, I do think its a given now that the players are stronger than they have ever been so players are getting hit in the head harder now than they were in the past. Most teams and players didn't start weights training until relatively recently.

Also aren't enforcers a relative recent thing in hockey? Did teams have a guy kept on the bench most of whose only skill was throwing and taking punches in the 50s?

So the fact that you have players training harder than ever, and more specialized than ever (so one who known for fighting probably trains accordingly) probably means the fights today are much different than they were 60 years ago in terms of damage to players.

 

[Comeds]

Maybe the issue is the sick fucks like me that want to watch it. But just as your views won't change, mine won't either. And Neither will society's appetite for violence.

That's one of the few things I think Milbury said that was intelligent. That fighting is in hockey because we like it, not for any other reason.

 

[elocomotive]

These guys make millions... If they don't want to be an enforcer and they want to focus on being a skilled player then they can choose to do so. But if they choose to make their millions fighting, then that is their choice.

That's a pretty naive position. Most, if not all, of these guys grew up as skilled, star hockey players in their hometowns. I doubt any of them grew up hoping to someday become an NHL enforcer, they grew up wanting to be a Lemieux or a Hull. At some point, they realized (or were told) they have enough skill to make it at the top level, but only if they also use the physical/fighting portion of the game to their advantage as well. (Jstew touched on this issue as well, good post) The sleepless nights and sick feelings before they play is well documented.

But how many guys are going to give up their dream to play in the NHL? "Just don't do it then" is a tough thing to tell a 20-year old kid who thinks he is immortal and isn't thinking about brain trauma or neurological diseases a decade or two down the road. They are thinking about reaching their dream, thinking about making their family and town proud of them, and reaching an elusive level of play which even very talented athletes often can't reach. It is a choice? Sure. But it's a choice 99% of people would make the same. Especially when they know they can bank a few million just by making it to the AHL level for at least a few years.

And even outside of that, the more important question is the role and effectiveness fighting has in the sport. If fighting were not a part of hockey, I would NEVER call a hockey player a pussy. The cardio endurance, the massive hits, the pummeling around the net, the sticks and pucks to the teeth, etc. These guys grow up as hockey players, not fighters. They are trained to be hockey players, not fighters. They dream of being hockey players, not fighters.

I think there are two big elements to this story:

(1) What is the role of fighting in hockey and what is it supposed to accomplish? Are there better ways to accomplish this than fighting? Because there "always has been fighting" is a terrible argument. It isn't grounded in any reason, but only allows the inertia of history to steer the future. If that were the case, women wouldn't be voting, blacks would still go to separate schools, and we'd still be burning witches. Thankfully, at some point in history, someone corrected those ills. The NHL needs to look at the effectiveness of fights in preventing cheap shots (you all know I personally believe its a poor method) and what the alternatives are - suspensions? very limiting rules to fighting so it's a rarity?

(2) What is the NHLPA doing on pain medication and transitioning players to life beyond their careers? As someone noted earlier, it is difficult to not notice that the 3 players that died this summer are all enforcers. But it's just as (if not more) important that depressions and medications/pain killers seemed to be involved in all 3 as well. The NHLPA needs to examine what it is doing to help players move their lives off the ice, to treat addictions, and to have a better support network for each other. It's clear that whatever these guys were going through, they hid it to some degree from the public, their families, etc. I think the players themselves can do more to help each other, because they can use each other to understand what they are going through more than they can use anyone who has never been a professional hockey player.

On either front, maybe some positives will come from all this tragedy.

 

[elocomotive]

Also aren't enforcers a relative recent thing in hockey? Did teams have a guy kept on the bench most of whose only skill was throwing and taking punches in the 50s?

It's my understanding that fighting has always been part of hockey, but it was much more minimal from the start of last century until the 50s and 60s. Then it exploded in the 70s and has remained at similar levels just below that from the 80s to the 00s, but I think the "enforcer" was only part of the game during that last time frame. But I've only been a fan since 2006, so I could be wrong. And those are just generalizations that I could muster in a couple sentences. Grain of salt.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

its interesting to note that quite a few former players arent playing the "head trauma" card in talking about Belak ... Ive heard Tyson Nash, Ray Ferraro and Claude Lemieux talk about the major life adjustment that retirement is

/fwiw: Jeff Marek said Belak told him a while back that he never had a concussion in his playing career (I know Belak wasnt a doctor)

 

[Darkstone42]

Beyond the increase in training specificity and skill among fighters, which lead to increased head trauma directly imposed by fighting, there have been a lot of medical advancements in recent years, which means more medications, which means more effects from medications.

In recent years in particular, a slew of new painkilling and antidepressant formulas have been developed and distributed to the public. Sure, they've been tested and approved before their release, but how much do we really know about them until they've been used by a bunch of people over a span of a few years? Well, not much, really. When it comes to drugs, science is predictive for sure, but not perfectly so, especially given the differences between the individuals taking them.

I guarantee today's enforcers are on more and different medications than yesteryear's. Let's also consider that most painkillers act either on the central nervous system or directly on the brain. So what's changed over the decades? A lot.

I think fighting should be eliminated from hockey altogether for a number of reasons. One is that we know more about head injuries. The second is that, as players get stronger, fights get more dangerous. And the third is the evolution of pharmaceutics. The latter two have amplified the ill effects of fighting on the hockey player's psyche. The former allows us to be aware of both that and the effects of head injuries on a person's long-term mental and physical state. When those factors are combined, I think there's no way fighting can be condoned moving forward.

 

[elocomotive]

Darkstone also reminds you.... Wear your helmets properly!

 

[Darkstone42]

Darkstone also reminds you.... Wear your helmets properly!

Don't even get me started.

 

[SLY]

This debate can go on forever.

 

[thedddd]

Darkstone also reminds you.... Wear your helmets properly!

Understatement to say the least! It is amazing, as most of you probably have seen. How many kids come to the first practice no knowing how to put on a helmet correctly, kids not willing to keep it adjusted properly and cheaper made helmets that fall apart (I won't bash the brand that I see all the time). I tell my parents that is the one piece of equipment they should never go cheap on.

 

[puckhead]

Understatement to say the least! It is amazing, as most of you probably have seen. How many kids come to the first practice no knowing how to put on a helmet correctly, kids not willing to keep it adjusted properly and cheaper made helmets that fall apart (I won't bash the brand that I see all the time). I tell my parents that is the one piece of equipment they should never go cheap on.

the hell you say...

 

[thedddd]

the hell you say...

Nice!

Just think we survived playing with these:
A Tribute to the ol’ Cooper SK-100 Helmet : Perfect Duluth Day | Duluth MN Blog, Events, News and More

 

[Nasty_Magician]

These prescription drug deaths remind me a lot of pro wrestler deaths. The way I heard it explained by a wrestler in an interview is, as much as you like to think you have time to recover or no matter how much you want to rest up, your job is not secure. If you're not out there, there will be another guy filling in for you trying to take your spot. As a result a lot of these guys take pain meds to fight through it, and unfortunately become dependent on them. I think the league really needs to start monitoring this stuff.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

Also, if I remember 46n2's previous rants on this subject (forgive me if I'm wrong, I've been awol for a while), a lot of this has to do with the perceived hypocrisy. How can anyone seriously believe that the league cares about head injuries when it condones people punching each other in the head? It sends out the mixed messages to the players that head shots are ok sometimes and not others. I know, I know, they know the difference between cheap shots and fighting. I just don't think they really take the cheap shots seriously (unless it happens to them), and the mixed message may be part of the problem.

Rant????

Me????


:bowl:

 

[SLY]

its all you do. fuckin ranter.

 

[dare2be]

yeah fuckin ranter. I especially hate when he injects scientific evidence and logic into his rants as well. Pisses me off!

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

its all you do. fuckin ranter.

yeah fuckin ranter. I especially hate when he injects scientific evidence and logic into his rants as well. Pisses me off!

Darkstone made me.....

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

This debate can go on forever.

But it shouldn't......

 

[awaz]

IMO they need to fix cheapshots before they focus on fighting.. its like when congress focused on baseball instead of i dno, anything that was important to the country.. economy, war, etc..

cheap shots cause more problems then fights, focus on cheap shots.