I’ve mentioned it previously on my blog, but I don’t think that I have to mention it that often: hockey is a dangerous sport. Even though I love it, and have been following hockey for a long, long time, I must admit that it’s not for everybody. There have been many occasions in which players were injured badly, even fatally, so to say that hockey is a naïve sport is to be ignorant.
On the bright side, there have been many changes of the rules in hockey and I think that that lessened the number of injuries hockey players suffer during the season. Thankfully, we even have proof to back that statement, so I have to say I’m grateful that hockey is becoming less dangerous year by year. However, today, I wanted to mention why hockey was a dangerous sport to play; I wanted to point out the exact mistakes that we are trying to fix (and we’re fixing them just fine, slowly!)
Dangers of hockey:
1. It’s played on ice, after all
Hockey has to be one of the sports with the most injury reports! That is primarily because hockey is played on ice. Ice, if you’re not a professional skater, can be very difficult to walk on, let alone play a highly dynamic game. It’s incredibly slippery, and sometimes, you can just make a smallest mistake in your skating and end up with horrible consequences.
2. A vast number of injuries
Injuries can range from a simple bruise to a concussion, and what’s worse is that anybody can get them, even the professional players. Usually, there is a common myth that only beginners can have such injuries, but it’s really not the case. Many professional players end up with a concussion or a laceration even! It just depends on your fall and on your equipment; namely, this is one of the reasons why the hockey equipment has become better over the years – the equipment brands wanted to protect their users to the maximum degree.
3. Chronic pain
Sometimes after the injury players suffer with a remnant of it, that is the chronic or even phantom pain in the place of the injury. There have been many instances in which a player is left with chronic pain after they dislocated their knee or their shoulder – you can look it up if you don’t believe me. Not only is chronic pain present in the areas of the previous injuries, but it’s also present in one of the body parts that is under the most pressure during the game: back.
Many professional players complain of constant back-pain which they link with skating and playing hockey. This is the issue: Back pain is no joke and shouldn’t be overlooked; it takes a toll on our health in general!
4. Violence
Look, we all have to agree that not all players are nice and dandy on the field. We have seen a plethora of stories on in-game violence between teams, even between team-members as well! Violent players do face a consequence, but they also do hurt other players, either mentally or most likely physically.
