It looks like the call for toughter rules to protect NHL players against concussions has gotten a new champion: The New York Rangers new team member Brad Richards.
On Friday The New York Times, in a story headlined “New Rangers Center Joins Growing Call For Safer Hockey,” said that Richards appears ready to step forward and push action on the head-injury safety issue. It is a matter that has weighed heavily on the league this year.
Richards, who at $12 million a year is the NHL’s highest paid player, told The Times that the game could do with a ban on hits to the head. He also believes that American hockey can do without the fights that are the highlight of the game for some fans. Hits to the head are already barred in U.S. college and international hockey, according to The Times.
The repeated head injuries that so-called “enforcers” sustain have fueled speculation about a link between those concussions and the deaths of three NHL players earlier this year. Two of them took their own lives.
“Every locker room now is talking about head shots and concussions,” Richards told The Times.
The NHL last year agreed to ban most hits to the head, “but kept legal those resulting from straight-on contact,” according to The Times. But even with that stricter rule, players are still sustaining brain injury. In January Sidney Crosby of the Penguins suffered a concussion that kept him sidelined.
Although it’s not Richards’ role to fight during a game, he is in favor of banning fighting to protect NHL enforcers. The 31-year-old has been involved in four fights and had two concussions in his career.
It looks like he will be an eloquent spokesman for some sanity from the NHL on brain injury.
