NHL emails in concussion case reveal talks on fighting links
As part of the ongoing concussion lawsuit between a collection of ex-players and the NHL, a federal court in Minneapolis unsealed emails that were sent between NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and then-head of the Department of Player Safety Brendan Shanahan.
Via Rick Westhead of TSN, some of those emails contain discussions about concussions and fighting in the NHL.
One such thread surrounded a Sept. 2, 2011 Globe & Mail article called “Getting Rid of Hockey’s Goons” that Shanahan sent to Bettman and Daly. Please recall that was the summer during which we lost Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak.
From Westhead:
“Do you remember what happened when we tried to eliminate the staged fights?” Bettman wrote in a Sept. 3, 2011, email to Shanahan and Daly. “The ‘fighters’ objected and so did the pa [NHLPA]. Eliminating fighting would mean eliminating the jobs of the ‘fighters’, meaning that these guys would not have NHL careers. An interesting question is whether being an NHL fighter does this to you (I don’t believe so) or whether a certain type of person (who wouldn’t otherwise be skilled enough to be an NHL player) gravitates to this job (I believe more likely)."
Daly replied: “I tend to think its a little bit of both. Fighting raises the incidence of head injuries/concussions, which raises the incidence of depression onset, which raises the incidence of personal tragedies."
"I believe the fighting and possible concussions could aggravate a condition,” Bettman wrote. “But if you think about the tragedies there were probably certain predispositions. Again, though, the bigger issue is whether the [NHLPA] would consent to in effect eliminate a certain type of ‘role’ and player. And, if they don’t, we might try to do it anyway and take the ‘fight’ (pun intended)."
(There’s something so quaint about the commissioner of the NHL using “pun intended” in an email.)
A lawyer for the ex-players told Westhead that these emails establish a link the NHL has denied exists:
“While the NFL has recently admitted the link between repetitive trauma in sport and long-term brain disease, the NHL continues to deny the link, insisting that hockey is not football,” Michael Cashman, a lawyer for the former players, said in an interview. “Contrary to those public denials, this internal email from senior NHL executive Bill Daly to commissioner Bettman acknowledges the link between head injuries, depression and personal tragedies.”
More on the emails can be found here.
A few thoughts:
1. Part of the lawsuit is establishing if the NHL had knowingly withheld information about concussions from players and did nothing with that knowledge to prevent them. Does an email from 2011 establish that? And couldn’t the NHL come right back and say, ‘Yes, because of that knowledge, we created a Dept. of Player Safety months earlier to try and combat concussions?’
That said, the NHL opens itself up to this kind of criticism when it refuses to concede any link between head trauma and CTE.
2. What Daly is effectively doing here is agreeing with Bettman’s assertion that people with “certain predispositions” are drawn to hockey fighting, which is an interesting tact to take.
Jay Glazer, FOX Sports NFL insider and MMA enthusiast, recently said on Bill Simmons’ podcast that people with a predisposition toward depression and other emotional issues are drawn to physical and combat sports.
“It’s not sane for me to sit in a cage and get kicked in the face. It’s not sane,” he said. “Now it’s like ‘this guy’s suffering from depression,’ and we had it going in. Not every single person, but a lot of us had it going in.”
This is an entirely different rabbit hole down which to fall in this debate, but at the very least seems to be a notion Bettman is open to.
3. As we’ve seen previously regarding this suit: Amazing how the NHLPA escapes any and all criticism despite its integral role in player safety matters.
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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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