Hockey arena stanchions a focus of safety concerns

By Nathan Crosby

University hockey player Cody Lockwood was 15 when he suffered his first concussion after hitting his head on a plastic stanchion at the Memorial Arena in Kamloops.

“I was skating with the puck and I backed up to make a play and a guy hit me. My head hit the stanchion and that was that,” he said.

Lockwood, a defenceman for the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack hockey team, still plays in the old Kamloops Memorial Arena. It’s an old hockey “barn” built three years after the end of Second World War. The plastic stanchions are used in Memorial to border arena glass in open areas like the penalty box. Foam pads are used in every other Kamloops arena.

On March 8, 2010 the hockey world watched how devastating stanchions can be upon collision. Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens chased a puck along the boards near the player’s bench at the centre line when six-foot-nine Boston Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara tried to hit Pacioretty into the boards. Unfortunately for Pacioretty, the stanchion separating the player bench from the visiting team’s player bench got in the way and dropped Pacioretty to the ice, rendering him a motionless as if he was dead.

Even though Pacioretty has recovered from the hit and is playing for the Canadiens this year, the incident opened the public’s eyes to the dangers the stanchions create. It is now mandatory that NHL arena staff install curved glass in all 30 buildings for the 2011-2012 season.

Hockey parents like Donna Bloxom say incidents like these have made safety a bigger concern in the last three to four years than ever before.

She has two kids playing in Kamloops minor hockey, mostly at Brock arena. She said the Pacioretty-Chara incident has made parents more aware of the risks playing hockey and hopes Kamloops arenas are safe for play.

“I don’t have a problem with them hitting in the sport, but I don’t think the kids are properly trained to body check. If kids don’t know where to properly body check and how to receive it, they are going to get hurt,” she said. “I make sure Colton has the best helmet.”

Colton had a close call with a concussion playing minor hockey. He was checked from behind and sent sliding into the boards when he was 13 and the doctor said he suffered a mild concussion.

She said Colton isn’t playing hockey next year for reasons not just pertaining to head safety. If he did, it would be his first year playing midget level hockey. Bloxom said she would concerned if her son continued to play into midget, where the majority of players are tall enough to come into contact with the stanchions.

In the university league, six-foot-five Cody Lockwood is big enough to hit a player into the stanchions.
When asked if he would ever try to purposely lead a player into a stanchion, Lockwood said no, but added that being aware of the stanchions never crosses his mind when committing to making a hit.

“First thing’s first is hitting the player, separating him from the puck,” he said. “It’s tough. When you’re in the moment, you’re not thinking clearly. Time and space is what it’s all about and you’re trying to create space out there, that’s what guys my size try to do.”

On Sept. 16, Lockwood was ejected from a pre-season home game against the Okanagan College Coyotes for a hit to the head. After, he said he doesn’t want to ever seriously injure a player, especially after the Pacioretty-Chara incident.

Jesse Jones, the Memorial Arena recreational facilities manager, said there has never been a serious injury connected with the stanchions there and that the level of hockey played at Memorial is not fast enough to worry about the stanchions.

However, experts say the health risks of hitting any hard surface, including stanchions, can be severe. Janice Fraser, a registered physiotherapist at Kamloops Physiotherapy, said player awareness of the stanchions can lower the risk of serious injury from an impending hit. Although she said most concussions occur with mid-ice hits, trying to make the stanchions unavoidable is not realistic.

“Even if the boards were to be changed, and there may be a way that is proven to reduce these forces at the stanchion, it still would not reduce concussions in hockey by a statistically significant amount,” she said.

She added that hockey helmets are not designed to prevent concussions, but to prevent skull fractures and no helmet could be made to protect a player from hitting the stanchions.

“In Pacioretty's case, it appears his head hit the glass border (direct impact), and his skull would have stopped moving but his brain would have continued to move forward in its cerebral spinal fluid until it impacted the inside of the skull (concussion), at the same time his neck, torso and lower body would have continued to move forward along the side of the board,” Fraser said. “This is likely how he fractured his fourth cervical vertebrae which could have been a much more serious injury.”

Fraser specializes in manipulative therapy, acupuncture and sports rehabilitation. She also spent three years in Whistler treating skiers, snowboarders and mountain bikers, all whom wear helmets and risk hitting their heads on blunt objects at high speed.

Fraser said a helmet can never fully prevent a concussion but can sometimes help reduce severity.

“In some cases it may actually not be as severe if the forces do not induce a rotational force on the brain inside the skull.”

In her opinion, no helmet could be manufactured to fully secure the brain due to the fact that it moves inside the head upon impact.

Ryan Leggett, an accident reconstruction engineer at Forensic Dynamics Inc. in Kamloops, said surface area is the problem with the stanchions.

He uses calculations and computer programs to recreate car accidents so insurance companies and law courts can better evaluate claims, and can also use the technology to recreate hockey hits.

Leggett said there are two reasons why the stanchions cause injuries - their small surface area and stiffness.

“An example of surface area affecting the magnitude of injuries is a steak knife versus a butter knife. The steak knife has a smaller area, so cuts much easier (equal force causes more injury),” he said.

“The second problem is the deflection: think of new cars versus old classic cars. The new cars have "crumple zones" which absorb energy and increase the amount of deflection. This causes the impact to occur over a much longer period of time, which decreases the maximum amount of acceleration imposed on your body (reducing injury).”

His solution to making the stanchions safer would be mounting a wider and perhaps curved piece of material to the edge of the stanchion.

“This would serve to increase the area, and deflect players back onto the ice. Then, cover this area with some stiff foam or otherwise shock absorbing material. This will increase the deflection during impact, reducing the acceleration experienced by the player.”