Six months after the QMJHL announced it would ban fighting, what impact did this decision have on the world of hockey? In recent weeks, the Journal has surveyed leagues around the world, including players passionate about fighting and experts concerned about athletes’ brains. We will present the result to you in the coming days.
Eliminating fighting in the QMJHL will protect athletes’ brains in part by reducing the risk of concussions associated with blows to the head, the effects of which are particularly severe at this age. But what will happen when he advances to the next level where fighting is still allowed?
Brain development ends “between the ages of 24 and 26,” experts on the subject told us.
That means the risks associated with concussions are just as serious for a 19-year-old athlete playing in Quebec junior hockey as they are for a 21-year-old hockey player playing in the NHL, American League or whatever league he plays. Might throw away the gloves.
Derek Boogaard (right) died in 2011 as a result of alcohol and painkillers. An analysis of his brain revealed that the tough guy, who played more than 60 fights in the NHL, suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Archive photo
Philippe Fait, a professor at the University of Trois-Rivières, who also sits on several international committees on concussions, emphasizes that injuries affecting the brain can “slow down the growth and development of the brain” until my mid-twenties.
It’s like a bone, he illustrates. “If it breaks, there is a risk that growth will stop.”
- Listen to the interview with Dr. Dave Ellemberg, a neuropsychologist who specializes in concussions QUB radio :
Ten times more at risk
Doctor Dave Ellemberg, a researcher at the University of Montreal, mentions that concussions tend to have a greater impact on the frontal lobe, which is responsible for “the ability to inhibit and mental flexibility.”
“[Ces deux capacités] are part of the higher cognitive functions that allow us to form plans and strategies and make quick decisions, which to some extent form the basis of logic and reasoning,” he explains.
Young adults who have suffered more than three concussions “are therefore ten times more likely to develop neurodegenerative brain diseases, mental disorders or anxiety problems,” adds Dr. Ellemberg added.
9% of concussions
Fights account for 9% of concussions in the NHL, according to a study led by Dr. Charles Popkin from Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) in New York was reported.
This is not the root cause. It’s more about body controls.
But since tackles occur significantly more often during a game than fights, which have been taking place in free fall for two decades, we can say that this is a major cause.
Fights are also the cause of other serious injuries, mentions Philippe Fait: especially fractures of the hand, face and loss of teeth.
effects regardless of age
And although in some cases the health effects become less significant once the hockey player reaches his mid-twenties and his brain development is complete, they have not completely disappeared.
On the contrary: “We know that the more setbacks there are in a person’s career, the more often there are cumulative effects,” explains Professor Fait. And the closer together they are in time, the greater the risk of problems.”
“I think it would be better to stop fighting, no matter what level,” he says. It’s already not part of the rules of ice hockey: you don’t have to know how to fight to play.”
“If you want to do a martial art, there’s boxing, karate. Sports that have a connection to combat and whose rules are associated with it.