Stiffer penalties and stricter rule enforcement have helped to dramatically lower the number of concussions suffered during the first month of NHL season, the league said on Tuesday.
Concussions are down 50 percent to 60 percent from the same point last year, the NHL told general managers during their first meeting of the season, offering clear evidence that steps taken to curb hits to the head are having an impact.
“They are less than half from the same time last year, so it’s a significant improvement,” NHL vice president of player safety Brendan Shanahan told reporters. “We would love get rid of them all, but we know we’re not going to do that.”
The NHL did not provide figures, but the high number of bans handed out by Shanahan appear to have gotten the message across that dangerous hits will no longer be tolerated.
Since taking over as league disciplinarian at the start of the NHL season, Shanahan has suspended more than a dozen players for multiple games, including a 12-game ban to Columbus Blue Jacket James Wisniewski for a hit to the head.
Concussions remain the hot-button issue for the NHL as the league and fans await the return of Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who has been out of action for almost an entire year recovering from concussion symptoms.
Much of the morning was devoted to discussing goaltender safety, an issue that has made headlines recently as Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller suffered a concussion after a hit from Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic.
Lucic, who flattened Miller when the former Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goalie left his crease to clear the puck during Saturday’s game, was assessed a minor penalty for charging, but avoided suspension.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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