By Mike Shogren

I love the game of hockey, and have been involved in youth and high school hockey for the past 15 years as a coach and association board member. My three sons all played the sport and each suffered a concussion, one of them major. When this injury occurred, I became very engaged in the research and technology being developed to study and treat concussions in football and hockey. I am now working for a company that has developed the first head impact monitor (contained in a mouthguard) proven to be highly accurate at measuring the magnitude, frequency and location of impacts to a player’s head. 

While there is an explosion of stories about the frequency, impacts and long-term effects of concussions, including CTE, we should realize that our knowledge is in its infancy. The latest CTE findings and the increasing occurrence of concussions should create discussions about safety and launch further study into the quantity and magnitude of head impacts occurring at all levels of play and across all sports.  

Every parent should know we are just beginning to study head impacts in youth sports, and there is broadening agreement that it is not just the large “concussive” hit, but the occurrence of many more “sub-concussive” hits that may cause long-term effects. One of the things that needs to be determined is what level of impact should be considered a “sub-concussive” impact that is significant enough to count. 

Underpinning all of the discussion about head impacts is the fact that, to date, there has been no accurate method for measuring head impacts on the ice or playing field, and very little objective data has been collected from use by athletes at any level.

Almost all data on head impacts in sports has been collected using a football helmet with embedded sensors. We know that impact to the helmet is different from the impact to the head, because the helmet moves independently from the head. With the advent of accelerometer technology in a mouthguard, we can more accurately measure head impacts, and evaluate impact patterns in hockey and other sports.

We believe the impact dynamics in hockey will be found to be significantly different than in football, where the process of blocking and tackling can lead to head impacts for multiple players on most plays. In hockey, almost all impacts happen around the puck and usually only when there is a check, or contact with another player. This does not happen on every play, nor do all checks create a head impact. 

In our testing to date in hockey, all of the head impacts we have measured have been of a sub-concussive magnitude (the player was not diagnosed with a concussion). We have seen only a small number of measurable impacts for most players in a game, and some players go a full game with no measurable impacts. 

Many of the highest magnitude impacts were called as a penalty. This should be no surprise to any coach, player or parent. Rule changes, like the removal of checking at PeeWees, and increased penalties for checking from behind and enforcement of boarding, have already made the game safer and reduced these risks, but we have a long way to go. It is essential that we continue to advocate for, and better enforce, the game’s existing rules to ensure safety of all our players. 

We are working with youth associations and high schools this season to quickly add knowledge about the frequency, magnitude and location of head impacts experienced by hockey players at different levels of play. Having a database containing the accurate head impact history of players over time will help us better understand the risks of the game and make the game safer. Parent, player and coach support for these efforts is critical to the long-term safety of all the players involved and the future of the game we all love. 

Mike Shogren, a long-time coach and board member of Minneapolis Youth Hockey, is currently the Chief Revenue Office for Prevent Biometrics.