The sad news came down this week that a former player of mine was being forced to retire from hockey at just 20 years old following his fifth concussion. This hit home for me the idea of how we deal with concussions as coaches and team officials. I’m old school, I love physical hockey, I want players to learn to play through pain, but concussions, that’s a whole other animal. Far too often I’ve seen players and coaches rush to get guys back on the ice and in the game. “For the good of the team,” they say. “The team needs me,” they say.

No, they don’t. Not like this anyways. 

Stop rushing the return. Brain injuries are no joke. It’s time we all wised up as to how we deal with this. Oh, and parents, that goes for you too (I’ll get to you guys soon btw.).