In action on Tuesday night, a peculiar situation occurred where Toronto Maple Leaf Mikhail Grabovski took two hits to the head from Boston Bruin defender Zdeno Chara, the second of which resulted in some issues for Grabovski;
However both the player (Grabovski) and his general manager, Brain Burke are adamant that he did not suffer a concussion according to a Globe and Mail article. From a PURELY observational position we noticed that he not only lost his ability to stay on skates after the second hit, his balance was disrupted enough for him to stumble getting to his skates and the bench.
Burke had this to say during a radio interview;
“And so the trainer said to him ‘Are you good to go?’ and he said yeah he got it in the jaw. He said he just got it in the jaw and was disoriented. No symptoms.”
Uhhhhhh…. Disorientation IS a symptom of brain function disruption, as well as loss of balance. Just because he scored the game winning goal late in the 3rd does not excuse this oversight.
Would be nice to see the guy actually get hit in the jaw. He clearly took two shots to the right temple of his head.
As a follow up. I think that all professional sports leagues should immediately take ownership of the hiring of all medical personnel. No athletic trainer or physician should be employed by any individual team.
Perception is reality.
This is a VERY solid point and one that I hope to dive into in the near future.