Concussions suffered by high profile stars such as Chris Paul of the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets and Sidney Crosby of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins have US sports leagues cracking down on blows to the head.
NHL general managers meet next week with protecting players high upon their list of topics, while the NBA is consulting with a neurologist and pondering tougher league protocols for dealing with concussions by next season.
Crosby has been sidelined since Jan. 6 after hard blows to the head twice in five days during games.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who guided his club to a Super Bowl crown last month, missed a game during the NFL season after suffering two concussions.
MLB’s Minnesota Twins has been without first baseman Justin Morneau since last July because of a concussion.
Concussions or similar symptoms have sidelined an average of nine NBA players during each of the past five seasons, including eight so far this season, the most recent being Paul, who went down on Sunday and was stretchered off the court.
In the past three weeks, Miami’s Mike Miller, San Antonio’s Gary Neal and Vince Carter of Phoenix have suffered blows to the head in NBA contests as the league looks to adopt tougher measures in line with new NFL and NHL rules against improper hits.
The NFL has tougher regulations on allowing players back into games after they have suffered head injuries, while the NHL has cracked down on hits from behind, although no move has been made to ban fighting from the sport.
The NHL was left reeling last week after it was revealed that Bob Probert, a former NHL tough guy who died last year at age 45, had a degenerative brain disease and had left his brain to doctors so it could be examined for signs of chronic trauma. Two other former NHL players have brains that show similar signs of stress.
More than 350 NHL players have left their brains to Boston University so they can be examined in hopes of educating future generations about the impact and stress the sport can bring.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS