The purely pragmatic business decision: Remove all headshots from NHL hockey
Dear Commissioner Bettman:
I’m writing about the need to eliminate all headshots—accidental or inadvertent or otherwise—from NHL hockey. And I’m writing about this need from a purely pragmatic, bottom line perspective of your need, as NHL Commissioner, to maintain a sustainable business model for the National Hockey League.
There are three primary reasons for the NHL to eliminate the gray area from the rulebook and make all headshots illegal. All three reasons have everything to do with maintaining the National Hockey League as a sustainable business over the long haul.
Reason 1: You won’t be able to insure the players.
Mr. Bettman, this one has already been written about. But the NHL is a huge business, and players sign multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts that teams insure. Now put yourself in the position of an insurance company asked to insure the contract of a player who’s already suffered a few concussions. It is highly likely individual NHL franchises won’t be able to afford these premiums. I will not spell out all the potential consequences of this issue, but suffice to say, the NHL is going to have to change if it desires for its business to remain viable.
Reason 2: The potential ramifications of failing to eliminate headshots put the NHL in a precarious legal and financial position.
Mr. Bettman, you are no doubt well aware of the former NFL players who have filed a lawsuit against the NFL. By failing to address a known issue (head hits cause brain injuries), chances increase that the NHL is one day on the receiving end of a similar lawsuit. But there is a second, more immediate legal danger. One NHL General Manager has stated he is petrified a player is going to die on the ice from a head hit. If that happens, what do you expect the legal ramifications to be? Isn’t there a chance—more than a chance—that a government steps in and legislates the game for you, or worse yet, makes it illegal to play hockey, or illegal to play hockey that way? (Lest you think I am imagining a doomsday scenario, imagine what happens if a player dies on the ice. Is that manslaughter? What is it?) Since you have a law degree and I do not, I will leave the above statements as such and let you draw your own conclusions, but make no mistake: The NHL could reduce its legal risks if it would make it clear in its rulebook, and strictly enforce, that no headshot of any kind is acceptable in any NHL game.
Reason 3: Allowing legal head shots to continue makes it impossible for the NHL to market, sell, and grow NHL hockey.
Mr. Bettman, here I am not talking about what you have no doubt heard ad nauseam (how it’s the players like Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews and Nicklas Backstrom, not the guys who concuss them, who sell and market the sport of hockey). I respect your intelligence and will not bore you with facts you know: That it’s better for hockey for great players to be on the ice and that what they do on the ice sells and markets and grows the sport more than the greatest sales or marketing plan.
No, here I’m talking about something that goes beyond the need for the stars to be on the ice. I’m talking about what happens to your league when it’s another star player who gets hurt. When the list what’s up on NBCSportsNetwork at intermission is all about the list of injured All-Stars who are out of the lineup with concussions. I am talking about parents who won’t want their children to play hockey due to the risk (I grew up assuming my future kids would play hockey, and this past year has made me reconsider that long-held assumption). I am talking about potential fans who won’t buy tickets because if they want to see head hits, there are other sports where they can watch that. I am talking about long-time fans who flick off the TV, or get tired—though they love hockey—of defending a sport that can’t take proper care of its own players.
I love hockey. But for hockey to thrive, role players have to be more like reformed Matt Cookie, circa 2012, not like Matt Cooke, circa 2010, who hit opponents in the head. Hockey will always remain unique in requiring short shifts and the right role players to complement superstars in order to capture a championship. Collectively, all those players sell and market NHL hockey.
But right now, how can all those players sell and market NHL hockey when NHL hockey is viewed through the lense of elite athletes out with concussions and a league that’s failed to act to protect its players? Right now, with headshots and head injuries detracting from everything great about hockey, the NHL isn’t even giving its players—all of them—a chance to show off the greatness of NHL athletes. And the players, and the game itself, deserve the chance.
Commissioner Bettman, while I believe the three reasons I’ve delineated above speak volumes about why headshots no longer have a place in the NHL game, I understand that you’ve never played hockey at an NHL level. I also understand that you respect those who do and who have and view those men as “guardians of the game.”
For hockey to be played. For parents to allow their children to play hockey. For elite athletes to grow up and want to play hockey. For insurance companies to be willing to insure your players’ contracts. For the government not to have to rewrite your rulebook for you. For all those reasons—not just the common (and truthful) song-and-dance you hear about needing star players to market and sell the sport to fans new and old—you have to make a purely pragmatic decision that is driven only by business interests.
You—on your own, as its business leader—have to push through to many who say “it’s just a hockey play” whenever a player hits another player in the head—that head shots are no longer part and parcel of NHL hockey. That all head shots are illegal.
And, Gary, this isn’t about the sport of hockey. This goes beyond the sport. It’s about taking care of the athletes who play the sport, who need to be protected from themselves. It’s about taking care of the business of the sport.
However, I suspect you will find that taking care of the athletes, and taking care of the business, enables the sport to take care of itself. Hockey will still be hockey. Injuries will still happen, and concussions won’t totally go away.
But the league will have taken a step in the right direction, a step that keeps players on the ice, playing hockey, and that makes it much more likely the NHL remains a sustainable, viable business well into the 21st century.
P.S. Other initiatives, including work on equipment design and various studies on other ways to reduce head injuries, should also be implemented and acted upon in an effort to reduce concussions. But we know direct blows to the head cause concussions, so start there, and act swiftly as the league’s business leader. And, since they already boo you, who cares if you get a few more boos if you’re doing the right thing? (But, if you pushed through a ban on headshots, I have a sneaking suspicion you’ll be remembered not as the man the fans booed, but as the man who helped to save hockey by saving the sport from itself.)
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