They say the NFL is a copy cat league, schematically speaking.
Now, former NHL players are copying the NFL.
On Monday it was announced that a group of retired NHL players have filed a class-action lawsuit against the NHL, claiming that the league has not done enough to protect players from concussions.
The suit alleges that the league knew about scientific evidence saying players who suffered repeated head injuries were at greater risk for illness and disabilities, but failed to protect players from unnecessary harm until 2010.
If this sounds at all familiar, it should. Recall in late August 2013 that the NFL reached a tentative $765 million settlement over concussion-related brain injuries among its 18,000 retired players, agreeing to compensate victims, pay for medical exams and underwrite research.
As was true in the case with NFL players, it is all going to come down to 3 simple questions:
- What did NHL executives and officials know about the long-term dangers associated with concussions?
- When did they know it?
- When did they share what they knew with players?
The issue of addressing concussions in hockey was first brought to my attention at the International Conference of Sport and Society in Vancouver in 2010 when I had the pleasure of listening to author and former NHLer Mark Moore, the older brother of Steve Moore who famously had his NHL career ended by the vicious Steve Bertuzzi check from behind. In the presentation, Mr. Moore raised various issues discussed in his book (Saving the Game) aimed at making hockey a safer sport.
The next time I met Mr. Moore was at the 2012 Harvard Sports Law Symposium where he continued to contribute to the discussion of concussions in sport. It was at this symposium that I learned more about CTE through presentations by Dr. Robert Cantu, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University.
Though the NFL admitted no fault, they realized it was in their best interest to settle their case against players to avoid the continual public relations stain caused by the concussion lawsuit.
The concussion storyline in the NHL doesn't get the same ink in the States, largely because hockey's popularity is considerably less in the States. The NFL generates nearly $10 billion annually compared to hockey's roughly $4 billion.
But NHL executives are not likely desirous of fighting the same public relations battles the NFL withstood. This is not to stay that this is a legal cakewalk. Nothing ever is in the world of pro sports negotiations and collective bargaining agreements.
But I cannot see a scenario where the retired NHLers don't receive some form of settlement, as long as they can prove that the NHL could have done more to inform and protect players...which I suspect is true.
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Patrick is an Economics Professor at the George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology at Webster University in St Louis, MO, and the Founder/Director of Sportsimpacts. Follow him on Twitter.
