Accidents can and do happen anywhere, anytime to anyone. This statement
is very true when dealing with a physical contact sport like hockey. There is a
certain amount of risk involved in playing any sport. When an injury occurs, it
inflicts tremendous hardship on the injured person, the team and the parents as
well. Hockey is a very popular and fun game to play (it is now considered
Canada's national sport, along with lacrosse) but it can also be very dangerous.
As players become better educated about hockey injuries and play by the rules
the game will be even more fun to play. This paper will discuss the importance
of common and catastrophic injuries, protective equipment, an indepth analysis
report, the role of a coach and personal related hockey injuries.
MOST COMMON INJURIES
During the hockey season a person's body ends up getting bruised,
injured and banged around. A hockey injury report done by the International
Hockey Centre of Excellence has statistics on the most common hockey injuries
and how they occured. the most common injuries are to the shoulder, knee and
the head.
Injury to the shoulder is the most common hockey injury in the game
today because of the physcial contact. Of the injuries reported in the 1993-
1994 hockey season, 12% of those were shoulder related. Injury to the acromio-
clavicular joint was the most frequent because of the bodychecking. Every time
a player steps on the ice, he is constantly being pounded into the boards,
shoulder first. The glenohumeral was often being injuried mainly from fighting
and accidental contact. Hockey manufactures are constantly trying to improve
shoulder pads so this injury will not happen.
The knee followed closely behind the shoulder being injured 11% of the
time. A knee injury is very serious in hockey because it can end a player's
career. Knee injuries usually occur in the open ice area when a player is
cutting hard and is kneed or tripped by an opposing player. Accidentally
colliding with an opposing player or one of your own teamates, often ends in
knee related injuries. The medial collateral ligament was damaged in 80% of all
reported knee injuries, followed by the lateral collateral ligament 10% of the
time. The cruciate ligament and meniscal were injured 3% of the time.
Head injuries are the third most common type of hockey injury accounting
for 8% of all injuries. If you were to include facial injuries which would be a
combination of the head, teeth/mouth, jaw/chin and eye injuries they would
represent 26% of all reported injuries. A special analysis has been undertaken
by the Hockey Development Centre of Canada to better understand this problem.
The head is often driven into the boards awkwardly which leads to concussions.
NHL,OHL amd Junior A players are suffering head injuries because they do not
have to wear full face masks and are subject to stick infraction.
CATASTROPHIC INJURIES
Catastrophic injury is any incident causing death or permanent long term
disability. Hockey played out of Ontario has seen a dramatic decrease in
catastrophic injuries. There were 26 such injuries in 1992 compared to 44 in
1989 and 79 in 1986. In the past, Ontario had represented almost half of (more
than 200) spinal injuries since 1976. The reduction of these numbers is due
from hockey executives who introduced a rule prohibiting checking from behind in
the 1985 season. A report done by Glen Mccurdie (manager of the health benifts
for the CHA) told of nine Canadian players who suffered broken necks, with three
reslting in quadriplegia. In the 1992 season four players suffered broken necks,
two were classed as unavoidable because they involved players losing their
balance and falling into the boards.
Finally, league and executive members are beginning to crack down on
people who hit from behind and cause catastrophic injuries. On December 6, 1994,
OHL commissioner David Branch suspended Steve McLaren for the entire season
after he ran Ottawa 67's Jure Kovacevic from behind. Kovacevic sustained a
broken vertebrae and cracked ribs when hit into the boards. Kovacevic is still
recovering from the injury even though he was not paralyzed. Almost six years
ago another Ottawa player, Grant Marshall was hit from behind by Jason Young
and broke his neck. Young was also suspended for the year. Marshall, luckly
was able to return after a long term therapy and was drafted first round to the
Toronto Maple Leafs the next year.
Checking from behind is a very serious matter and it comprised 11.13% of
all reports filed. Checking from behind is found most frequent in the Bantam
(34.73%) and Midget (23.62%) age groups. Players at this age are just beginning
to incorporate hitting into their game. Many children are not properly taught
the basics of hitting in their peewee years and because of this they develop bad
checking habits, and this is were checking from behind comes into play. To make
hockey a safer game to play, hitting from behind must be put to a complete.
Parents, coaches, fans and players have to become better educated for this to
occur.
PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT
Having the right protective equipment when playing hockey is so very
important because of the physical contact. Every year players are receiving
serious injuries because they have the wrong hockey equipment. Unnecessary
injury can reult from incorrectly fitted equipment. All hockey players should
have and learn how to tell if their equipment is properly protecting them.
SKATES- Should provide protection for the entire foot and the ankle area
(achilles tendon). Your feet should fit with your toes just
barely touching the front of your skate.
SHIN PADS- Must be properly postioned at the knees for full flexibility and
extend just to the skate top. The shin pads should not roll off
your knee at any time in a game. They should also be
protective enough to with-stand a hard shot or slash.
ATHLETIC SUPPORT- Should be fitted comfortably, according to waist
size. A proper cup must be worn at all times.
HOCKEY PANTS- The short pants (tackula) should be about six inches
larger than the player's waist size to give extra protection and
flexibilty. Always check to make sure that all the padding is
in the right place and does not fall out.
GLOVES- Must be snug but not to tight and should over-lap your elbow
pad to protect your forearm. Players should be using full
wrist cuffs instead of the short cuffs because they give you
the extra protection you need around your wrists.
ELBOW PADS- The elbow joint should rest firmly in the cup. The elastics
or velcro should feel snug and tight. For more upper arm
protection, your elbow pads should be long enough to be
overlapped by your shoulder pads. Make sure your elbow
pads have a good slash guard as well.
SHOULDER PADS- Be sure the shoulder cap rests squarely on the top of
your shoulder. Adjustment straps should always be snug
and tight. At contact levels, your pads should be strong
enough to give and receive hard checks. New shoulder
restraints are built into the pad and are now being used to
stop shoulder injuries.
HELMETS- Only properly fitted, correctly adjusted Canadian
Standards Association (CSA) certified helmets can be used.
The reason so many head injuries occur in hockey is because
of improper hockey helmets.
INDEPTH ANALYSIS REPORT
The following section will give you a more indepth analysis about hockey
injuries. Aspects like, where players are most commonly being on the ice,
number of injuries per period, injuries by position, number of injuries by
assessment and finally the time loss due to injuries will be discussed.
NUMBER OF INJURIES BY ZONES- This shows where players were most commonly
injuried when they were playing hockey. This is a combination of being injuried
with board and no board contact.
As shown, a great majority of players are being injuried in zone 4 (23%),
zone 5 (19%) and also zone 6 (19%). These three zones all exist in the centre
of the ice, telling people that players are receiving most of their injuries in
the neutral ice area.
ZONE OF INJURY BOARD CONTACT- Board contact occured most often in zone 6 (22.5%),
zone 4 (20%), Zone 9 (17%) in the attacking corner and zone 1 (12%) in the
defending corner. This happened becuase most of the board contact occurs inside
the blue line and the corners.
ZONE OF INJURY NO BOARD CONTACT- Injuries where boards were not a factor occured
in zone 4 (25%), zone 5 (22%), zone 6 (16%) and zone 7 (11%). All of these
zones occur right in the middle of the ice.
NUMBER OF INJURIES BY PERIOD- By periods, injury rates occur during the second
period at 41%. Injuries in the third period occurred 37% while injuries in the
first occured 21% of the time. There have been no injuries reported during the
warm ups and only 1% occurred in overtime.
INJURIES BY POSTION- By position, wingers are the most commonly injuried at 42%
because of hard forechecking and tough defence you need to play on the wing.
Wingers are always skating up and down the boards every game and are constantly
being hit into them more then any other players. Defencemen were a close second
at 37% because the defence are constantly skating back into their own end
chasing the puck and being hit into the end boards all game long. This is where
most of these injuries occurred. Centres sustained 17% because they mostly stay
in the neutral parts of the ice and are not involved in most of the physical
activity in the corners.
NUMBER OF INJURIES BY ASSESSMENT- The most common type of injury in hockey is
from contusions, at 24% because of the puck and the stick use. Sprains then
followed at 19% and then strains at 18%. with these just being minor injuries to
players.
TIME LOSS DUE TO INJURY- Time loss due to injury states how long it took a
player to recover from an injury and return to action. 38% of those athletes
injuried playing hockey were out for less than a week while 36% returned the
same day. Those out for less than three weeks contributed to 18% while 9% of
injured players were out more than three weeks. Injuries which required more
than three weeks recovery were to the shoulder, knee, head and forearms.
ROLE OF THE COACH
The role of the coach is a very important one when dealing with children
and young adults playing hockey. The coach must support his/her players and
make hockey the fun game it was meant to be.
What is a coach? A coach is a person who is willing to give up his/her
free time and energy to help make a team that much better. As a coach, it is
also your responsibiblity to give your players an environment that provides them
with maximum enjoyment and safety. Injury prevention is a vey serious matter
when playing hockey. This begins with making sure your players have the proper
equipment and knowledge of how to play the game. A coach should always begin a
game and practice with a series of stretches and warm up exercises that will
cut down on injuries. Coaches should remember that injuries to players can and
will continue to bother them throughout adulthood of not handled correctly.
They should do all they can to make sure that their players are kept injury
free so it will not affect them for the rest of their insightful careers.
PERSONAL RELATED INJURIES PLAYING HOCKEY
I have been playing hockey for sixteen years now and I have suffered two
major injuries during this time period. I fractured my clavicle when I was hit
a meter away from the boards. It happened in my major peewee year when I was
twelve years old and it put me out of hockey for almost eight weeks. After my
shoulder it took me a long time to get my confidence back and at first I was
afraid to go into the corners. The main reason why my clavicle was fractured
was because my shoulder pads were not the most protective piece of equipment
compared to other brands.
Two years later in major bantam, I fractured my ulna and raduis bone
after being hit from behind the opposition's net. My arm required closed
reduction surgery and I was in a cast for two month and out of hockey for three
months. Having better equipment could not have helped me in this situation.
When a person is hit from behind, unfortunately the top brand equipment will not
be able to withstand the hit and a serious injury usaully occurs. Hockey would
be a better game if all hitting from behind was somehow eliminated.
CONCLUSION
Since hockey is a physical contact sport, injuries are bound to happen.
Federations like Hockey Development Canada are routinely doing studies analyzing
different factors of hockey injuries so that in the future they can make
recommendations on how to eliminate these. We can make hockey an even better
game to play if all players would be aware of each other and cut down on cheap
shots.
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