Add Josh Connolly to the list of hockey players out with post-concussion syndrome.
"It's tough," said the B.C. Major Midget hockey player with the Prince George-based Cariboo Cougars. "You start working out and you start getting headaches and have to take a couple of weeks off. It's one of those things you have to get 100 per cent."
The 16-year-old defencemen, a prospect of the Western Hockey League's Kamloops Blazers, has missed 22 of the Cougars 24 games this season after taking two hits to the head in a game during his team's second game of the season. Connolly - younger brother of NHL forward Brett Connolly - isn't the only member of the Cougars to suffer a concussion this season. Cougars' goaltender David Readman returned to action last weekend after missing two weeks.
Bryan MacLean, assistant coach of the Cougars, said dealing with head injuries is a tricky process.
"Concussions are funny and Readman's wasn't too serious," said MacLean. "His headaches went away pretty quick. With Josh it hasn't been as easy a process for him. It's unfortunate that it's taken so long, but you have to be patient with them to be sure he's healthy when he gets back."
The issue of head injuries with star has been at the forefront recently NHLers like the Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby and Philadelphia Flyers' Chris Pronger, among the players sidelined.
In an Dec. 19 editorial for the Canadian Medical Association Journal, interim editor-in-chief Rajendra Kale MD called for an end to shots to the head and fighting in hockey.
The 'relative newcomer' to Canada said he "was appalled by the disgraceful and uncivilized practice of fighting and causing intentional head trauma," in a game that fascinated him with "the skill, grace, speed and physical fitness needed to play."
Kale's editorial suggests fighting no longer has a place in the game. He cites to the research done at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy's Boston School of Medicine, which found 48 cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in former athletes, including hockey players Rick Martin, Reggie Flemming, Bob Probert and former Prince George Cougar and NHL enforcer Derek Boogaard.
MacLean said as a coach he's more cautious these days when a player appears injured.
"You don't want to be putting a kid on the ice in a situation where he's injured or could get hurt," said MacLean. "With all the knowledge that we've gained on concussions we're a lot more cautious and that's a good thing because you don't want to have people risking their futures just to play one shift or one game."
Dallas Thompson, general manager of the Prince George Cougars, said it would be difficult to entirely remove fighting from hockey.
"It's always been a part of the game," said Thompson. "I think the WHL and all leagues have done a good job taking away the staged fighting.
"I don't think they're ever going to take the emotion out of the game and if you do that it won't be the same," he added. "Hockey's an emotional game and it always has been. For it to be successful it always has to have emotion in it."
When it comes to hits to the head, Thompson said, it comes down to respect.
"The rules are fine, but at the NHL, our level and all levels it comes down to respect and respecting your opponent," said Thompson. "Some of these hits that are taking place, certainly some of them are avoidable and those are the ones that are being dealt with very strictly by the league.
"Some of them are hockey plays that are going to happen," he continued. "I don't think you're ever going to get hits to the head ever out of the game, but you want to get the ones out that could be stopped."
Thompson said it puzzles him why players appear willing to deliver a career-threatening hit to other players these days.
"Before all this social media where every kid knows everybody and they play on all these summer teams together, it used to be about your team, the 22 guys, and you didn't really know anybody on the other side," said Thompson. "For me it doesn't make much sense because all these guys know each other."
In his editorial, Kale said he found it difficult to understand the hockey traditionalists' views that removing fighting from the game would somehow ruin it.
"The main intention in hockey is to score goals rather than to cause lasting brain damage in opponents," wrote Kale.
