"I hope hockey players and hockey families are paying attention."
Lindsay Gibbs at ThinkProgress:
Two weeks ago, with little fanfare, the National Hockey League (NHL) reached a tentative settlement with 318 former players who were suing the league for its negligence with regards to concussions and head injuries. In full, the settlement is worth $18.9 million. Each player who opts in will receive just $22,000, with the maximum any single player is eligible to receive through the deal is limited to $75,000.
The NHL, which has long refused to admit that there is a link between brain injury and hockey, did not have to admit any liability in the settlement.
It is, in a word, a travesty. It was not, however, a shock.
“I was not at all surprised by the settlement terms,” Krystal Murphy, the daughter of former Detroit Red Wings first-overall draft pick Joe Murphy, told ThinkProgress in an email last week.
Top NHL officials have vehemently fought the lawsuit from the beginning, even though it led to an ugly discovery process that brought emails into the public eyein which NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and other top league officials blamed players’ personalities and dispositions, rather than head injuries, for struggles with alcohol, depression, and memory loss after retirement. Nevertheless, their decision to fight paid off. Unlike the NFL concussion lawsuit — which was granted class-action status, resulted in a $1 billion settlement, and inspired a Hollywood movie — the NHL lawsuit has remained under-the-radar.
For the most part, current and former players have assisted the owners in keeping the matter under wraps by remaining silent about the issue. Retirees like two-time Stanley Cup champion Daniel Carcillo — who told the New York Times that “the NHL is killing human beings” and has already announced his decision to opt out of the settlement — are the exception, not the rule.
“Players just didn’t publicly support retired players who were seeking justice and a remedy for their suffering through the courts,” Murphy said. “There isn’t a public showing of unity or brotherhood from NHL players on the brain injury issue.”
[...]
“The NHL won for now but should understand that all it will take is one case able to clear the procedural hurdles to get in front of a jury. When someone can get the NHL to trial and force them to try and rebut expert scientific testimony on CTE and brain injuries, the NHL will lose,” she says.
“When that day comes, that plaintiff’s win will be a symbolic victory for everyone involved in this.”
