

Secrecy hampers NHL's effort to combat head injuries

Sidney Crosby, the world's most talented hockey player, made big news over the weekend during his trip to South Florida.

He did this not by scoring a hat trick for the Pittsburgh Penguins or even playing in Friday night's game, but merely by skating in circles for 27 minutes during a non-contact workout earlier that same day.

Crosby's latest bout with post-concussion symptoms won't allow him to do anything more strenuous.

It's been since early December since Sid the Kid thrilled NHL fans during an actual game, and still there remains no timeline for his return.

"With these things," Crosby said, "a lot of times there aren't a lot of answers."

Nor is there much public information, even as the modernized NHL pledges to make its game safer for those who play it.

Crosby, having gone through this before, is one of the special cases when it comes to the characterization of hockey's head injuries.

Most times teams follow league guidelines and simply refer to them as "upper body injuries," as ridiculous as that sounds.

The Panthers are as secretive as anybody else, with the exception of the Maple Leafs, for whom such injuries remain "undisclosed."

Even as a handful of Panthers have dealt with head injuries this season, including Marcel Goc, Mikael Samuelsson and most recently Marco Sturm, official word remains murky.

Doesn't matter if the player is willing to talk openly about his condition or not, usually upon his return. The Panthers, even after the fact, prefer to use a league-created loophole wide enough to accommodate a Zamboni.

They did talk openly about David Booth's concussion, but that was deemed a long-term issue. For the Panthers, any head injury expected to keep the player out less than two months will remain an "upper-body injury."

Asked if he would prefer to see full disclosure among all NHL teams, Panthers coach Kevin Dineen said he would defer to General Manager Dale Tallon.

"We've had internal discussions," Dineen said. "Nobody wants to hide anything. We don't want deception. There's no intent that we're trying to misdirect people."

Tallon, like Dineen a former NHL All-Star, has explained the Panthers' stance as being twofold: One, it's meant to protect the player from being targeted by opponents and secondly, it's meant to avoid putting the Panthers at a competitive disadvantage.

Why let your next opponent know a particular player won't be in the lineup when virtually every other team keeps such information private?

It should be pointed out that specific body parts are rarely listed on the injury report, whether they be knees or wrists or elbows.

"I feel protected by the league," Panthers forward Jack Skille said.

"Anything upper body is upper body. Anything lower body is lower body. You don't want players to be a target when they come back."

The NFL has the same type of fears and the same sort of misdirection. A knee is rarely a knee in the NFL; it's usually listed as a hamstring, if it's listed at all.

Yet head injuries now tend to be made public far more often than the NHL seems willing to make them.

Perhaps this is due to the massive difference between the two leagues when it comes to public interest, particularly in the area of gambling (fantasy leagues included).

Or maybe by highlighting head injuries rather than pretending they don't exist, the NFL is just doing a better job of showing its commitment to stamping them out.

Crosby, bearer of this unwanted torch, gave his league a passing grade in this initiative.

"I think they're doing a pretty good job," he said.

"They can only do so much, but they've done a lot of good things to prevent injury. If that effort and that caution is there consistently, I think we're going to see a change."

Until then, we can all keep rolling our eyes at the latest "upper-body injury."

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