A worrying new study puts Gary Bettman back in the spotlight
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A new CTE study on NFL deaths is reviving hard questions about hockey, concussions and the NHL's own troubled history.
A new study is forcing another hard look at brain trauma in contact sports, and this time the fallout may hit the NHL just as hard as it hits football.
Researchers from Mass General Brigham, Boston University and the Concussion and CTE Foundation examined former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021.
Of the 878 players who died in that window, 235 donated their brains for study.
Of those 235 brains, 215 were found to have CTE, a rate of more than 91 percent among donors.
Even using the most conservative math, researchers estimate at least one in four of all 878 players who died had the disease.
The NHL has been down this road before and too agent Allan Walsh has always been vocal about it.
The Montador case still looms
Steve Montador played 14 seasons in the league before he died in 2015 at age 35.
His brain was later found to have widespread CTE, and his father's wrongful death lawsuit against the NHL is still working through Illinois court.
The league settled a separate concussion lawsuit in 2018, paying $18.9 million to more than 100 former players without admitting liability.
Commissioner Gary Bettman has repeatedly downplayed a direct link between concussions and CTE, telling a lawyer under oath in 2015 that there was no medical certainty connecting the two.
Doctors in the field have pushed back on that stance for years, and neurosurgeon Robert Cantu has said NHL players sit in the upper tier of risk for the kind of repetitive head trauma tied to the disease.
What this new data means for hockey
The NFL numbers do not automatically translate to hockey, but the sample size and the science behind it are hard to ignore.
Fighting, open ice hits and board contact all carry real risk, and former players have said for years the league needs to take it more seriously.
With camps opening and hits to the head still part of the conversation, this study adds fresh weight to a debate that never really went away.
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