Good morning. I’m Patrick White, a reporter at The Globe. The NHL continues to deny any sort of link between fighting in hockey and player brain injuries – more on that below, along with some tension on Parliament Hill and a COP 16 check-in. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Liberal MPs left a lengthy caucus meeting divided on Prime Minster Justin Trudeau’s leadership
- Donald Trump’s lawyer has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Election Commission alleging British foreign interference
- The Bank of Canada lowered the benchmark interest rate to 3.75 per cent
Chris Simon of the New York Islanders fights Todd Fedoruk of the Philadelphia Flyers in a 2007 game. Simon was considered one of the toughest fighters in NHL history.Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
Sports
This NHL season, an accountability check
Back in the Stone Age when I played minor hockey, the arrival of the latest instalment in Don Cherry’s Rock’em Sock’em Hockey video series always caused a buzz in the dressing room.
The VHS recordings featured the best hits and fights from the previous NHL season, set to Cherry’s commentary. And they sold millions. Today, those old videos make for tough viewing. We thought we were cheering for the great Canadian game; we were actually cheering for head trauma.
In my recent reporting, I found that in public statements, and in courtrooms, the NHL denies any link between the game and the effects of long-term head trauma. The league argues it has made the game safer with new penalties for fighting, concussion protocol and restrictions on contact to the head.
A few of us at The Globe started talking more about this in March, after learning about the suicide of Chris Simon, one of the NHL’s premier enforcers from 1992 to 2007. His family attributed his death to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain condition triggered by repeated blows that has been found in the brain tissue of several deceased NHL fighters. But this NHL season has dawned with nary a mention of his name or of CTE.
CTE can only be diagnosed posthumously, meaning there could be many more players out there struggling with the disease. Shortly after Simon’s death, I started talking to a few of his old combatants, asking them how they were faring. Most talked fondly of their playing days. Without enforcers, they say nobody will protect star players against the casual violence that is baked into a fast and dynamic sport.
That’s not to say they don’t worry about CTE. Dennis Vial, an enforcer who fought 110 times in 242 NHL games during the Simon era, reads and thinks about CTE regularly. “One day, am I going to wake up losing my mind and turning into some violent person?” he asked.
He doesn’t know who he’d contact if he experienced such a decline. Vial and others said there was no hotline or assistance program for retired players in distress.
Still, he wouldn’t change a thing. “If I’m an 18-year-old kid and I get offered a million dollars to play hockey even though there’s a chance of concussion and I’ll end up suffering 25 years down the road, I’ll sign that,” he told me.
Those who are suffering are doing so in relative silence. I went to Wisconsin to speak with Mike Peluso, an enforcer who played eight seasons and won a Stanley Cup with the Devils in 1995. He was part of a class-action lawsuit against the league that alleged the NHL ignored the effects of head trauma. He’d suffered a severe concussion during a fight in 1993 that led to several grand mal seizures and early onset dementia. He eventually pulled out of the class-action lawsuit, which failed to be certified, and filed his own suit, which eventually collapsed.
During an hours-long conversation, he told me he was considering selling his Stanley Cup ring to pay for continuing medical care. If he had known how much his health would suffer, he never would have played the game.
“We’re pretty much unemployable,” he said of retired enforcers. “I can’t speak for everybody, but we’re beat up, we have emotional issues. A lot of us didn’t prepare for after hockey. Is that our fault?”
As a fan, I feel somewhat complicit. I’d cheered on his demise. But I hope that lack of help is slowly starting to change.
As for the future, former goalie Glenn Healy, now president and executive director of the NHL Alumni Association, says his staff is currently helping players with anything from brain scans to rent money. He says they are working with around 200 people. I wonder how many more there are to reach.
The Shot
‘We run the chance of actually hitting a tipping point of no return’
His art project, which took many people and skills to create, is a metaphor for how the world would be able to solve the biodiversity crisis, Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong said.JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP/Getty Images
At COP 16, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Colombia, Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong has created an ecological Jenga that – much like the state of biodiversity – is teetering toward collapse. Read more about his art installation and its message here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says the excavation of a Winnipeg-area landfill where the bodies of at least two First Nations women were disposed of by a convicted serial killer has now begun.
Abroad: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed for a diplomatic solution in Lebanon as Israel bombed Tyre, a UNESCO-listed port city in south Lebanon.
On the ground: The U.S. said that 3,000 North Korean troops have deployed to Russia for training, suggesting expanded military ties between the two countries as Moscow seeks support to gain ground in the war on Ukraine. On Thursday, South Korea condemned the move.
In the air: Small aircrafts are critical to protecting endangered species like North Atlantic right whales from getting caught in fishing gear or struck by ships. To continue this work, scientists need to fix the issue of plane safety.