St. Louis Game Time has a great look at concussions in this week's Tuesdays with Hildy, and it's timely—St. Louis hockey's favorite concusser, Cam Janssen, had his own Saturday night, which left him looking "like Barf from You Can't Do That On Television after being hit on the head with a frying pan." Which is funny, until you realize it's because his brain was bouncing around in his skull. Pull quote:
↵↵↵Small yet powerful hits to the head can also cause the issue to happen. Since it's structural and not chemical, the depression that accompanies it is mostly untreatable through traditional means, such as most medications and therapy. Basically, if you get whapped in the head enough, it's permanent. The jitters that player gets when they return to the ice after a concussion is a very legit fear of never being mentally correct again.
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The whole piece is definitely worth reading. The recent focus on concussions and their permanent ramifications in hockey and football will do more for the welfare of players (both professional and amateur) that anything has in the last 50 years, I think. But it's also interesting to think about the ramifications this knowledge will have on the sports themselves. The decline of boxing as a middle-class pursuit is certainly a bad-case scenario.