CdnSailor
11-27-2011, 11:10 PM
Headaches and depression have replaced the joy of playing for too many teenagers striving to make hockey a career
By Andrew King November 27, 2011
I never played a game in the National Hockey League. In fact, after only dressing for a handful at the junior level, some Junior A but mostly Junior B, my skates were relegated to the basement closet where unrealized hockey dreams go to retire.
There was no tearful press conference, no skate around centre ice to thank adoring fans. At 18, any prospect for me as a professional athlete was gone. But the truth is, my short-lived career had begun its descent two years earlier.
I suffered seven concussions over the course of those two years spanning Midget to Junior hockey. Four were diagnosed by doctors and training staff; the other three, I kept to myself. The first one came as the result of a direct blow to the head, not in the midst of an on-ice battle, but in the dressing room. The ill effects of roughhousing and overflowing testosterone were immediate. Dizziness and a clouded mind during practice only worsened the following day at school. After sleeping through an entire class and tumbling down a set of stairs, it was obvious that I had a problem that an ice pack and a bottle of painkillers could not solve.
The doctor ordered me off the ice for two weeks: concussion No. 1 was official. It wasn’t long though, after the first subsided, that the second came along. This time there was no contact to the head, just a body-to-body collision involving myself and another teenage player. Because of it, though, my foggy state of mind returned.
By the following year the concussions, along with the symptoms, were piling up in number. Constant tiredness, memory loss and mood swings had become routine. Drowsiness behind the wheel was hard to ignore, and not long after, depression began to take hold. I told no one of the problems. Keeping them secret kept them manageable. Then, as sudden as a hard elbow to the jaw, the problems became all too real. A friend and former teammate of mine ended his life.
Depression had taken hold of him and he had enough. It wasn’t known if concussions were to blame, but his death brought depression out into the open for me. It made suicide an option, a reality, a way out. My friend’s funeral was a dark preview of what could be.
Maybe it was my tear-strewn face, or my failed attempts over the previous few months to hide my struggle, that led to my trainer taking me aside at the church and saying to me: “This is the last time I come to one of these. You understand what I’m saying?”
The message was clear, but I chose to keep on playing for my Victoria Midget team. My dream of making it in hockey continued at a Junior A training camp for the Victoria Salsa, where I made an early impression. Hard work was paying off for me at training camp, until during a scrimmage it was bluntly suggested that I would have to fight another player for a spot.
It didn’t matter that we were wearing the same jersey and held no animosity toward one another. So, I did as I was told.
The blood was everywhere as I took him to the ice.
But little did I know that the blood was flowing from my face. My nose was repositioned in a new direction. By the end of the week, I was sent packing. I had lost the fight, a place on the team along with my pride, but I’m thankful for plastic surgery.
My ensuing Junior B career lasted all of two months. It ended two weeks after I suffered my final concussion, the result of being driven headfirst into the boards. After hanging up my skates, my depression consumed me. I was trapped in my mind, disconnected from my body. Sitting alone in my darkened bedroom became the only way to cope.
A year of anti-depressants barely helped; feelings of dread were replaced by no feelings at all. Eventually, I decided to face my demons head-on, without pills, moving ahead with baby steps. Most important, I found other passions. Today I’m a journalist. After 13 years, most of the ill-effects are gone.
The seriousness of concussions and depression in the game of hockey is getting worse. Making life-lasting sacrifices before the end of puberty in the name of hockey is wrong. Hockey culture must change, along with the macho mentality that dominates in the dressing room. The teenage years are hard to get through, harder still when you realize the price of your hockey dream has been constant headache and depression.Andrew Kingwas a CTV Montreal reporter from April to December 2010. Now he’s a freelance journalist based in Brussels.
By Andrew King November 27, 2011
I never played a game in the National Hockey League. In fact, after only dressing for a handful at the junior level, some Junior A but mostly Junior B, my skates were relegated to the basement closet where unrealized hockey dreams go to retire.
There was no tearful press conference, no skate around centre ice to thank adoring fans. At 18, any prospect for me as a professional athlete was gone. But the truth is, my short-lived career had begun its descent two years earlier.
I suffered seven concussions over the course of those two years spanning Midget to Junior hockey. Four were diagnosed by doctors and training staff; the other three, I kept to myself. The first one came as the result of a direct blow to the head, not in the midst of an on-ice battle, but in the dressing room. The ill effects of roughhousing and overflowing testosterone were immediate. Dizziness and a clouded mind during practice only worsened the following day at school. After sleeping through an entire class and tumbling down a set of stairs, it was obvious that I had a problem that an ice pack and a bottle of painkillers could not solve.
The doctor ordered me off the ice for two weeks: concussion No. 1 was official. It wasn’t long though, after the first subsided, that the second came along. This time there was no contact to the head, just a body-to-body collision involving myself and another teenage player. Because of it, though, my foggy state of mind returned.
By the following year the concussions, along with the symptoms, were piling up in number. Constant tiredness, memory loss and mood swings had become routine. Drowsiness behind the wheel was hard to ignore, and not long after, depression began to take hold. I told no one of the problems. Keeping them secret kept them manageable. Then, as sudden as a hard elbow to the jaw, the problems became all too real. A friend and former teammate of mine ended his life.
Depression had taken hold of him and he had enough. It wasn’t known if concussions were to blame, but his death brought depression out into the open for me. It made suicide an option, a reality, a way out. My friend’s funeral was a dark preview of what could be.
Maybe it was my tear-strewn face, or my failed attempts over the previous few months to hide my struggle, that led to my trainer taking me aside at the church and saying to me: “This is the last time I come to one of these. You understand what I’m saying?”
The message was clear, but I chose to keep on playing for my Victoria Midget team. My dream of making it in hockey continued at a Junior A training camp for the Victoria Salsa, where I made an early impression. Hard work was paying off for me at training camp, until during a scrimmage it was bluntly suggested that I would have to fight another player for a spot.
It didn’t matter that we were wearing the same jersey and held no animosity toward one another. So, I did as I was told.
The blood was everywhere as I took him to the ice.
But little did I know that the blood was flowing from my face. My nose was repositioned in a new direction. By the end of the week, I was sent packing. I had lost the fight, a place on the team along with my pride, but I’m thankful for plastic surgery.
My ensuing Junior B career lasted all of two months. It ended two weeks after I suffered my final concussion, the result of being driven headfirst into the boards. After hanging up my skates, my depression consumed me. I was trapped in my mind, disconnected from my body. Sitting alone in my darkened bedroom became the only way to cope.
A year of anti-depressants barely helped; feelings of dread were replaced by no feelings at all. Eventually, I decided to face my demons head-on, without pills, moving ahead with baby steps. Most important, I found other passions. Today I’m a journalist. After 13 years, most of the ill-effects are gone.
The seriousness of concussions and depression in the game of hockey is getting worse. Making life-lasting sacrifices before the end of puberty in the name of hockey is wrong. Hockey culture must change, along with the macho mentality that dominates in the dressing room. The teenage years are hard to get through, harder still when you realize the price of your hockey dream has been constant headache and depression.Andrew Kingwas a CTV Montreal reporter from April to December 2010. Now he’s a freelance journalist based in Brussels.