On Monday, a judge in Chicago dismissed the wrongful death lawsuit filed against the National Hockey League by the parents of former NHL player and Prince George Cougar Derek Boogaard.
After his days in Prince George and then Medicine Hat in the Western Hockey League, the Boogeyman surprised many by making it to the big leagues, where he played for six seasons with the Minnesota Wild and the New York Rangers. Tragically, he died from an accidental overdose of booze and pain meds in 2011.
He was just 28.
The judge had little choice in the matter. Boogaard's parents weren't the appointed trustees of their son's estate, a legal requirement to sue on its behalf. Furthermore, the case they brought before the court didn't meet the legal threshold to prove the NHL was negligent.
There is little doubt, however, that the NHL, particularly its culture around fighting and playing hurt, were contributing factors in Boogaard's death. Unfortunately, it now falls to the class-action lawsuit brought forward by more than 100 former NHL players over their life-changing injuries before anything might change.
An autopsy revealed Boogaard suffered from chronic traumatic encelphalopathy, a degenerative brain injury increasingly seen in post-mortem exams of longtime professional athletes. Repeated blows to the head is one of the causes of CTE.
As New York Times reporter John Branch showed in his book Boy On Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard, team doctors throw around painkillers to players as much as Trump fires out stupid and ignorant tweets.
Meanwhile, coaches, managers and fans complain that a player who can't "suck it up" and play with pain is letting down teammates and isn't tough enough to play with the big boys.
The NHL doesn't have a monopoly on this kind of deadly nonsense when it comes to the treatment of their athletes. Much has been reported on how the National Football League uses its players like spare parts, fills them up with drugs, pumps them up in the gym and then tosses them aside for younger and newer at the first sign of failure.
Except for Tom Brady.
The New England Patriots quarterback engineered the greatest comeback victory in Super Bowl history during the big game in February, returning from 25 points down in the final quarter to win in overtime. It was his record-tying fifth Super Bowl win and it was the fourth time he was named the game's most valuable player.
Not bad for a 39-year-old.
A decade ago, while recovering from knee surgery, Brady had time to dwell on the fact that he was hurting all the time, getting injured more often and the level of his play was going down, despite the fact he was doing what the team doctors and trainers were telling him.
So he stopped going to them.
As Sally Jenkins wrote in The Washington Post in the wake of his latest Super Bowl victory, he took back control of his health and welfare, turning himself into one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game in the process
In 2008, he radically changed his diet, dropping dairy, white sugar and white flour. He stopped lifting weights and running on traditional treadmills because of the pain and inflammation it brought to his joints. He switched to resistance bands, anti-gravity treadmills and yoga exercises that focused on flexibility. The NFL medical establishment was appalled at this New Age quackery from one of its elite athletes.
Then Brady started coming to preseason camp testing better than he had the year before, seemingly turning back time. He began meditating to prepare himself mentally for big games and key plays that require his unwavering focus.
Half of his Patriot teammates now follow a similar diet, training and game preparation regimen.
There have been some similar, player-driven changes in the NHL, most notably the diet and training regimen introduced by retired player Gary Roberts that was adopted by many players, most notably Steven Stamkos.
Stars like Stamkos and Brady have the power to tell their teams that they are in charge of their overall health and wellbeing. For those at Boogaard's level - fringe professionals just grateful for the opportunity to play in the top league in front of the big crowds - they must do what they're told or risk being cut or demoted. As a result, they endure the pills and the needles, the workouts and the cultural pressure to take it like a man.
Boogaard died in pain, hooked on painkillers and alcohol, already suffering from a brain injury that had caused permanent damage. The man so willing to drop his gloves to protect his teammates needed protecting himself but never got it.
Hopefully that class-action lawsuit is more successful.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
