From a corporate social responsibility standpoint, it is becoming increasingly difficult to associate our brand with sports events which could lead to serious and irresponsible accidents; action must be taken by the NHL before we are encountered with a fatality.What animated the letter? Watch this hit on Max Pacioretty, which resulted in a fractured fourth cervical vertebra, severe concussion, and ... no suspension of the player who caused it.
Unless the NHL takes immediate action with serious suspension to the players in question to curtail these life-threatening injuries, Air Canada will withdraw its sponsorship of hockey.
Friday, March 11, 2011
FROM THE SPORTS-RELATED BRAIN TRAUMA DESK: I wish the NFL had more sponsors like Air Canada, which has told the NHL that it will withdraw its sponsorship if the league doesn't take "serious" and "immediate" action on blows to the head, writing:
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And of course, NHL is threatening to stop using Air Canada for team flights and whatnot. Kind of intriguing to see who folds here.
ReplyDeleteYay for Air Canada, which is acting responsibly here in the long term, though I can't imagine this isn't going to get them some damage from old-school hickey fans in the short term (me, I think there's a middle ground for hockey as a conatct sport that threads a very wide eye of the needle between hockey as fight night and hockey as a non-contact sport).
ReplyDeleteBeen thinking a lot about the Chara hit on Pacioretty the last couple of days, and of course my opinion about it may be clouded by the fact that I'm a Bruins fan, and a Chara fan. It's clearly a brutal hit, and I definitely wish Pacioretty a complete recovery. But I still don't see the hit as a dirty play. It's just a really unfortunate result of a brutal, but clean, hit. Chara is a beast, and he's huge and strong, but he's just not a dirty player and that wasn't a dirty play
ReplyDeleteThe famous Bertuzzi / Moore incident of 2004 -- that was a cheap, disgusting play, and Bertuzzi never should have been allowed back in the league. I was in Vancouver in early April of 2004, and Bertuzzi (who was still suspended) received an ovation when he waved to the crowd (while wearing street clothes) after Vancouver's final home game of the season. I also saw mall vendors selling t-shirts with Bertuzzi on them and the caption (and remember, this was 2004, a couple of months after a certain Mel Gibson movie came out) "The Passion of the Bertuzzi". THAT was disgraceful.
Being on the west coast, neither of these teams are on my radar but I've seen the hit from every angle in every speed imaginable and I agree. It wasnt dirty, it was just unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteThis isnt the first time someone has been crushed into those 90degree angles where the glass meets the boards. They need to be removed, and I'm quite shocked that no one has redesigned them. Round them off, make them angled, something! Aside from putting some light padding on the corner, it seems as though no one has even given it a second thought.
If you didn't know the severity of the injury, I don't think anyone who has ever seen hockey would take a second look at that hit. It wasn't a cheap shot, but that's partly what makes Air Canada's position more justified -- it's not that it's trying to run the NHL, it's saying that hockey is so inherently dangerous that it can't be associated with it. But, I don't know how withdrawing sponsorship solves the immediate problem of protecting athletes. If that happened with the NFL, that's just less money that's available for health care expenditures for retireees.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. That hit - anywhere else on the ice - would not have resulted in an injury so severe. If only the news media would stop equating it with the despicable Bertuzzi hit. I'm assuming that Chara is feeling awful about the outcome. The league shouldn't suspend him for a legal check, the end. Where was Air Canada when the Bertuzzi hit occurred?
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I have had long conversations about the NHL and head injuries versus the NFL and head injuries. This is both because we watch hockey together and have two boys who are interested in playing hockey (and one does), but would never be allowed to play football. This is be a debatable choice, but it's the one we've made.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the other posters about that hit being "clean" and that glass being a big problem. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more (I'm curious, though, I'm not sure if Travis means changing the shelf where the glass meets the boards all around the rink, or just where there's no glass and then glass. I have to assume changing the former would dramatically change the way the puck rides the boards).
Regardless, what's interesting to me in this is the NHL usually reacts faster to respond to significant issues in the league, including head issues (see, changing pad construction, trying to change hit rules) than the NFL. At the same time, the league hasn't changed the icing rule, which it should, and it is clearly having a hard time with the hits. In addition, after a lot of thought, I believe there are easier ways to change hockey rules to prevent most (though not all, obviously) head injuries, and it will still be recognizable as hockey. However, I don't know exactly how you make the same changes to football and have it recognizable as football. Finally, I deeply, deeply dislike Don Cherry, but I have to commend his work at the youth level to avoid blind hits/hits from behind (and yes, I rewrote this to avoid the passive voice). I don't know an equivalent person of his stature in the NFL having similar conversations on the air.