At the age of 36 and after taking a full year away from the NHL to try and recover from the effects of multiple concussions, Paul Kariya retired Wednesday after a distinguished 15-year career.
And on the day he did so, Kariya had sharp words of criticism for a league that he believes still hasn’t done enough to address the issue of head injuries.
“The thing that I worry about,” Kariya said in an interview, “is that you’ll get a guy who is playing with a concussion, and he gets hit, and he dies at centre ice. Can you imagine what would happen to the league if a guy dies at centre ice?”
Kariya said that if the NHL wants to get serious about reducing the number of concussions in the game, it needs to introduce harsher penalties, in the same it did to eliminate the bench-clearing brawls that were so prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, but are completely absent from the game now.
“If you want to get rid of it, I’m a believer that you don’t go after the employees, you go after the employers,” said Kariya. “The first concussion I had, on a brutal, blindside hit, the guy got a two-game suspension. That was in 1996. The last one, from (the Buffalo Sabres’ Patrick) Kaleta, was exactly the same play, and he doesn’t get anything.
“If you start at 10-game suspensions and go to 20, that sends a message to the players. But if you start fining the owners and suspending the coach, then it’s out of the game.”
Kariya went on to say that every hit that ever knocked him out came as a result of an illegal hit.
“Every single one,” he reiterated. “I’m not saying you’re going to ever eliminate concussions completely because it’s a contact sport, but if you get those out of the game, then you eliminate a big part of the problem.
“A two-game suspension? That’s not enough of a deterrent.”
Last summer, Kariya issued a statement through his agent Don Baizley that he was planning to take the 2010-11 season off in the hopes that he could be fully recovered in time to sign for the start of 2011-12. And while he is now symptom-free, and says he “feels great,” his doctor advised him that the risk of re-injury was too great.
Even 12 months ago, concussion specialist Mark Lovell warned Kariya that this day was likely to occur. After the Kaleta hit, Kariya said he hoped his symptoms would go away over time, as they had before.
“Instead, they just kept getting worse and worse. My doctor said, ‘there’s no one in my profession that could clear you to play in this condition.’ Even last summer, he said, ‘even if you recover 100 per cent, I would advise you to retire.’
And on the day he did so, Kariya had sharp words of criticism for a league that he believes still hasn’t done enough to address the issue of head injuries.
“The thing that I worry about,” Kariya said in an interview, “is that you’ll get a guy who is playing with a concussion, and he gets hit, and he dies at centre ice. Can you imagine what would happen to the league if a guy dies at centre ice?”
Kariya said that if the NHL wants to get serious about reducing the number of concussions in the game, it needs to introduce harsher penalties, in the same it did to eliminate the bench-clearing brawls that were so prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, but are completely absent from the game now.
“If you want to get rid of it, I’m a believer that you don’t go after the employees, you go after the employers,” said Kariya. “The first concussion I had, on a brutal, blindside hit, the guy got a two-game suspension. That was in 1996. The last one, from (the Buffalo Sabres’ Patrick) Kaleta, was exactly the same play, and he doesn’t get anything.
“If you start at 10-game suspensions and go to 20, that sends a message to the players. But if you start fining the owners and suspending the coach, then it’s out of the game.”
Kariya went on to say that every hit that ever knocked him out came as a result of an illegal hit.
“Every single one,” he reiterated. “I’m not saying you’re going to ever eliminate concussions completely because it’s a contact sport, but if you get those out of the game, then you eliminate a big part of the problem.
“A two-game suspension? That’s not enough of a deterrent.”
Last summer, Kariya issued a statement through his agent Don Baizley that he was planning to take the 2010-11 season off in the hopes that he could be fully recovered in time to sign for the start of 2011-12. And while he is now symptom-free, and says he “feels great,” his doctor advised him that the risk of re-injury was too great.
Even 12 months ago, concussion specialist Mark Lovell warned Kariya that this day was likely to occur. After the Kaleta hit, Kariya said he hoped his symptoms would go away over time, as they had before.
“Instead, they just kept getting worse and worse. My doctor said, ‘there’s no one in my profession that could clear you to play in this condition.’ Even last summer, he said, ‘even if you recover 100 per cent, I would advise you to retire.’
