|
 Hockey has proven to be an equally dangerous sport as football,
but that doesn't mean the link between collisions on the ice and
post-career trouble will lead to a similar outcome. The legal and
cultural surroundings of the NFL and NHL concussion lawsuits are
more distinct than alike.
Start with the nature of the players themselves.
Former NFL players haven't just taken the league to task for their
concussion-related concerns; they've sued over all kinds of alleged
misconduct, including their rights to memorabilia and highlight film
revenue.
In the NHL, there's more blatant loyalty expressed by the guys who
used to don the uniforms. Hockey players have a penchant for closing
ranks when controversy arises, and this is no different.
Two prominent former players, Ken Daneyko and Keith Primeau,
expressed disinterest in pursuing concussion claims against the
league when interviewed prior to the introduction of the lawsuit
despite their lingering physical side effects from years of playing
the game.
Jeremy Roenick, in an interview with The Associated Press on
Tuesday, was even more outspoken about his disregard for the lawsuit
that was filed Monday in federal court in Washington.
"I'm not going to tell people what to do and say they're all trying
to cap on the system right now. That's their prerogative," said
Roenick, a 20-year veteran of five NHL teams. "They can put
themselves in public. They can go after the league that they craved
to be in since they were little kids and paid their salary. ... I've
always lived in the fact that I played the game of hockey knowing
there was a lot of risk to be taken. I went on the ice knowing that
my health and my life could be altered in a split second, and I did
it because I loved the game."
Roenick said he had 13 concussions during his career.
"I can tell you that the teams I was with handled it very well and
professionally throughout the whole ordeal," Roenick said.
Ten former players, including All-Star forward Gary Leeman, are
named as plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. It alleges the NHL
hasn't done enough to protect players from concussions and seeks
court-approved, NHL-sponsored medical monitoring for the players'
injuries as well as monetary damages. Attorney Steve Silverman said
a total of about 200 former players have signed up to be included in
the action.
"What the NFL concussion lawsuit did, not in the minds of the
lawyers but in the minds of the former players, was give them
confidence and hope that, yes, David can slay Goliath," Silverman
said on Tuesday.
[to top of second column] |
Among the allegations:
-
The NHL knew or should have known about
scientific evidence that players who sustain repeated head
injuries are at greater risk for illnesses and disabilities both
during their hockey careers and later in life.
-
Even after the NHL created a concussion program to study brain
injuries affecting NHL players in 1997, the league took no
action to reduce the number and severity of concussions during a
study period from 1997 to 2004.
-
The league didn't do anything to protect players from
unnecessary harm until 2010, when it made it a penalty to target
a player's head.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said on Monday the league is
"completely satisfied with the responsible manner in which the
league and the players' association have managed player safety
over time" and that it intends to defend the case "vigorously."
Leeman, who played for the Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Vancouver
and St. Louis from 1983-1996, suffered multiple concussions and
sub-concussive impacts during his career, according to the
lawsuit. Since his retirement, he's suffered from post-traumatic
head syndrome, headaches, memory loss and dizziness.
Michael McCann, a sports law professor at the University of New
Hampshire, expected this lawsuit to come like most observers of
the NHL and the sports world in general. But he questioned
whether the case is as strong as that of the former NFL players.
"I don't know if I saw in this complaint as much as we saw in
the complaint against the NFL, in terms of allegations of
misconduct. Much of this complaint focused on how the NHL
could've made the game safer at various points of time and how
the league knew of information and didn't allegedly share it,"
McCann said. "In the NFL, there was the allegation that the
league went out of its way to cloud the science. I didn't see
any of that in this complaint. I saw the NHL could've done more
and was interested in making money. Maybe there are ethical
issues, but I don't see how that's necessarily a strong legal
argument."
The complaint accused the NHL of being aware of studies dating
to the 1920s of the danger the sport can cause to the head.
"Those studies are publicly available. So it's hard to call that
any kind of fraud," McCann said. "It seems as if players and
their own union could've availed themselves of that
information."
[Associated
Press; DAVE CAMPBELL, AP Sports Writer]
AP Sports Writer Dan
Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
