Expressions of sorrow after the death of Teddy Balkind, a high school hockey gamer in Connecticut, have spanned the ice hockey world, from pregame minutes of silence in New England to tributes on “Hockey Night in Canada” broadcasts to hockey sticks set tenderly on patios from Manitoba to Minnesota to Maine.Balkind, 16 and
a sophomore at St. Luke’s School, in New Canaan, died after a player’s skate blade cut his neck in an on-ice crash throughout a game last Thursday in Greenwich, Conn. Such deadly accidents are rare, but when they happen they frighten and evoke an effective “but for the grace of God” feeling, chiefly among hockey moms and dads. Few understand the feeling the method Dr. Michael Stuart, the primary medical and security officer for U.S.A. Hockey, does.Stuart helped compose the company’s policy on neck defense. He likewise viewed his child sustain a comparable injury as a defenseman at Colorado College 24 years ago. Mike Stuart survived after 22 stitches closed what his dad described as an”almost ear-to-ear”gash.” It could have been the very same outcome for our own boy,” the doctor
said of Balkind’s injury.” I wish this young man had the injury our boy had. This restores really vivid memories, and this is really near and dear to my heart.” The death of Balkind, a 10th grader, has refocused analysis on using neck protection in amateur hockey in the United States.U.S.A. Hockey, the nationwide governing body for the sport, suggests gamers wear neck guards that cover as much of the neck as possible, however it does not mandate they do so, making the United States rather of an outlier on the worldwide hockey scene, despite having done substantial research on the topic.The governing bodies of hockey in Canada and Sweden mandate neck guards for novices, as do numerous European leagues and the International Ice Hockey Federation.In the United States, whether players must use neck protection is left up to individual hockey associations and oversight boards. The outcome is a patchwork of policies.Balkind’s school, St. Luke’s, and the team’s challenger in the video game, Brunswick School, of Greenwich, play under the guidelines of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council, which does not need gamers to use neck guards.By contrast, the Connecticut Interscholastic
Athletic Conference, which sets rules for high school hockey in the state, but not for prep schools, mandates that all players wear”commercially produced throat guards designed particularly for ice hockey.” “Every hockey player in the United States need to be wearing one due to the fact that U.S.A. Hockey advises it,”Stuart stated, adding that setting up a mandate is a regular program item at the organization’s annual conference– and will definitely be again– when the conference starts on Thursday.”It is extremely well that a mandate could come forward
,”Stuart stated. “Whether that can prevent this from ever occurring, whether it will have any impact, I guess will remain to be seen.”Neck guards might be the most disliked piece of hockey devices among players. They are generally made from Kevlar or nylon, foam and Velcro, and players, especially children, grumble that they are hot and cumbersome.It is
not clear whether Balkind was wearing neck defense when he was hurt. Michael West, the athletic director at St. Luke’s, and a school spokesperson, Nancy Troeger, decreased to comment,
saying they were concentrated on offering their community the personal privacy to mourn.Nor is it clear whether a neck guard would have avoided his injury.Still, more than 63,000 individuals have signed an online petition begun by a pal of Balkind’s to make neck guards a mandatory tool. “It feels like there’s no reason not to have actually neck guards required in the United States, and it feels like we needed to lose a young hockey gamer to bring awareness to the topic,”stated the petitioner, Sam Brande of Wayland, Mass., who went to summertime camp with Balkind for years.Brande, 16 and a severe hockey player, said he started wearing a neck guard last week after Balkind died
.”An injury like that seemed impossible to me,”Brande said.Skate lacerations are amongst the most gruesome injuries in sports. But they are relatively uncommon, and skate lacerations to the neck are rarer still.A U.S.A. Hockey survey in 2008 discovered that simply 1.8 percent of gamers reported ever being the victim of, or the witness to, a cut to the neck from a skate throughout play. Thirty-three gamers who reported being cut on the neck sustained wounds that were not dangerous.
About one in four who were cut, 27 percent, were using neck protection.Overall, 45 percent of the 26,342 respondents reported frequently wearing a neck guard, according to the
survey, which U.S.A. Hockey has referred to as the most extensive one conducted.However, the organization subsequently concluded that the survey did not supply enough
info to support mandating neck guards.” To date there is sparse data to describe the frequency of such an occurrence, the severity, or whether a neck laceration protector (neck guard)reduces danger or intensity,”reads U.S.A. Hockey’s “neck laceration protector”policy.It likewise says:”U.S.A. Hockey suggests that all gamers use a neck laceration protector, picking a design that covers as much of the neck location as possible. Further research and enhanced standards testing will better determine the efficiency of neck laceration protectors.”Since then, U.S.A. Hockey has documented 13 occurrences of neck lacerations brought on by skates in the course of play, or about one a year, according to information supplied by the organization.The company’s humanitarian arm, the U.S.A. Hockey
Structure, has also moneyed a handful of studies that have been released in the Scientific Journal of Sport Medicine on various elements of neck guards, including their efficiency at preventing cuts and their influence on a player’s variety of motion.Almost all the
neck guards evaluated avoided cuts in low-force simulations, however all of them failed in high-force simulations.”If U.S.A. Hockey is an outlier, it’s in that we’ve done more research study and invested more time and effort on trying to make neck lacerations less of a concern than any person else worldwide,”Stuart said.”
There’s very little other research raving this.”Prior to Balkind’s injury, the two most popular cases involved N.H.L. gamers, both of whom survived.Buffalo Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk was slashed in 1989 when an opposing player, Steve Tuttle of the St. Louis Blues, crashed into the goal crease and his skate blade sliced Malarchuk’s carotid artery and nicked his jugular vein.In 2008, Florida Panthers forward Richard Zednik sustained a similar injury when his teammate Olli Jokinen lost his balance during a battle for a loose puck along the boards and his skate caught Zednik’s
neck.In 1975, another New England school player, the 18-year-old defenseman James Dragone Jr., bled to death when the skate of an opposing gamer cut his neck during a video game in Boston. Almost 3,000 individuals attended his funeral.In 2017, in a women ‘video game in Guelph, Ontario, 16-year-old Cassidy Gordon left serious injury after another gamer’s skate struck her in the neck. She was using a neck guard.”It may have value in protecting from a neck laceration
or the intensity of a neck laceration,” Stuart said.”Although that is unproven, it certainly has enough logistical sense that U.S.A. Hockey advises it for all players, and if mandating it would even conserve one potentially disastrous injury or death, then I believe U.S.A. Hockey would be the very first to do that.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/sports/hockey/teddy-balkind-skate-neck-guard.html