men listen to hayley wickenheiser challenge. from the athletic:
A little more than a year ago, T.J. Oshie read a story about a young boy who was cut in the neck by a skate blade during a youth hockey game. Almost instinctively, Oshie reached for his phone and contacted his partners at Warroad, the hockey apparel company he helped found six years ago. What started as a way to create undershirts that weren’t itchy and irritating had developed into a safety-conscious business that helped develop new, cut-resistant fabrics to protect players’ wrists and Achilles tendons.
Now, Oshie wanted turtlenecks to protect the most dangerously exposed part of a hockey player’s body — their neck, and the carotid artery within. Sure enough, Warroad came up with a sleek turtleneck with its “tilo” design, which includes cut-resistant panels built into the fabric.
It worked. And Oshie still didn’t wear them.
In fact, he doesn’t believe a single player in the NHL wears anything of the sort. None of the bulky neck guards that are mandatory in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League (but not the Western Hockey League). None of the Kevlar-style fabric turtlenecks that are becoming more readily available all the time, from companies such as Warroad, AYCANE, and Cut-Tex Pro.
Players have their reasons. Oshie said NHL rinks are “hotter” than ever, with guys sweating through several undershirts a game, and the thought of wearing a turtleneck in such a warm environment is unappealing. Players are superstitious, wearing the same shoulder pads they used in juniors, using the same brand of skate they’ve worn since they were kids, using the same tape job and knob style they’ve used forever. And, well, turtlenecks and neck guards don’t look cool. Heck, only Wayne Gretzky and Tomas Plekanec ever really pulled off the look.
“It’s not a cool look having neck guards on,” Oshie said. “For whatever reason, it’s just not something that’s sleek and looks great.”
But then Oshie learned about Adam Johnson’s death on Saturday night. Johnson, a former player for the Pittsburgh Penguins, was cut in the neck by a skate blade during a game in England and died, shaking the hockey community to its core. Players and coaches from around the league expressed their heartbreak over the tragedy. But Oshie did more than that.
He ordered five Tilo turtlenecks from his company. One for him and four for some of his teammates to try. They’ll arrive on Monday. And he’s going to try playing in them. Because Johnson’s death did more than devastate the hockey world. It opened the hockey world’s eyes to an inherent — and possibly preventable — life-threatening risk that comes with playing the game.
“I just wish these things never had to be made, and injuries like this would never happen, because it’s so sad,” Oshie said on his way to the Capitals’ game against the Sharks on Sunday evening. “It hits me pretty hard, just thinking about my kids. I could take one to the neck tonight. And for them to not have a father — it’s just so sad and it makes me think twice about protecting myself and my neck out there. Whether it looks cool or not.”
…Jason Dickinson’s heart went out to Johnson’s family on Sunday, but he also spared a thought for the player whose skate caught Johnson in the neck.
“I feel for (him) as well,” Dickinson said. “He’s on the other end of that and he’s going to have some stuff to work through, because that’s heavy stuff. I guarantee he feels guilty right now, even though it’s a freak accident.”
That’s a word you hear a lot when it comes to skate-cut injuries, whether it’s Pat Maroon’s skate slicing through Evander Kane’s wrist last season or Matt Cooke’s skate tearing Erik Karlsson’s Achilles tendon 10 years ago. A “freak” accident. A “freak” play. But is it? After all, this is a game played by people moving at exceptional speeds with exceptional force wearing exceptionally dangerous weapons on their feet. If anything, it’s shocking that skate cuts don’t happen more often.
Hayley Wickenheiser, a Team Canada legend, assistant general manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs and emergency physician, bristled at the depiction of such incidents as “freak” occurrences.
“I don’t think this is a freak thing, I think it happens quite a lot,” she said. “It’s just the injuries are superficial, or the players are lucky. This isn’t something that doesn’t happen; it happens a lot in hockey. Sticks come up, skates come up, and the neck is very susceptible. So whatever we can do to make (neck protection) more mainstream and just part of the equipment, the better for the future of the game. It just makes sense to me.”
…Dickinson said the NHL provided a video at the beginning of the season highlighting the benefits of cut-resistant sleeves to protect the wrists and Achilles tendons, and those have become quite popular around the league. But neck protection remains ignored by everyone other than goaltenders.
Johnson’s death surely opened some eyes around the hockey world to the risk of skate cuts to the neck, and it appeared that several Providence Bruins, in the AHL, wore neck guards on Sunday. That’s a start.
But why does it have to be a years-long process? Why can’t it happen sooner? Why do players have to be grandfathered in to avoid any mandates whenever a new equipment mandate is instituted?
“Because they’re stubborn,” said one NHL equipment manager, who was granted anonymity so he could speak freely. “It’s a monkey-see, monkey-do league. All it would take is one guy to wear it. Then two days to get used to it.
Wickenheiser has a similarly simple solution to getting players past all their superstitions and habits, to get them to embrace what seems like such an obvious solution to a terrifying problem.
“You just put one on,” she said. “I wore one for 20 years with the national team, it didn’t interfere with anything I did. … It’s just like anything else, when one player does it, everyone sees it and it becomes normal. I can’t even remember hockey without visors now, and I grew up watching the world of hockey without visors. I can’t even imagine not playing with a visor with how fast the game is.”
As an emergency physician and all-time hockey great, Wickenheiser is perhaps uniquely qualified to weigh in on the subject. She knows how well-stocked NHL arenas are in terms of medical care. She also knows it’s not nearly enough if, God forbid, a situation similar to what happened to Johnson happens in an NHL game. The thought has frequently crossed her mind that if there were an incident at a practice, she might be the most qualified person in the rink that day. She runs the scenarios in her mind constantly, and “it truly horrifies me.”
“You know how little time and resources you have to save a life in that moment,” she said. “The deck is entirely stacked against you as a physician. In the NHL buildings, there would be qualified physicians, there’s (emergency medical services) in the building. You have every resource at your fingertips. But what you don’t have is time. You need a surgeon and you need blood and you need time, and there’s none of those things in that moment. It’s just such a devastating injury. It freaks me out, for sure.”
If Johnson’s tragic and shocking death doesn’t prove to be enough to open eyes and open minds, then what will?
“There are options out there, and it’s not a bad idea at all,” Dickinson said. “It’s about awareness. And events like (Saturday) night, events like Kane’s, like Karlsson’s — those really make guys think and get them worried. It’s definitely something I’d consider now. I mean, who cares what it looks like? Looking lame and living is a lot better than the opposite.”
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