Two major sports stars speaking out on concussions this week shows how serious they've become.
Two years ago it was hockey star Keith Primeau.
On Tuesday, it was football star Matt Dunigan.
Both are high-profile athletes who have decided to donate their brains to science after their deaths to help study the effects of concussions, which ended their respective careers.
"I think that culture has shifted," CFL commissioner Mark Cohon said Tuesday. "I think that concept has shifted and these guys want to live long and healthy lives. And part of that is managing concussions."
Concussions and the preventive procedures to reduce their long-term effects have become the now topic in sports.
As sports as a whole become faster, played by stronger athletes with equipment that is in some ways unforgiving, the incidents of head injuries are growing. Respect for the competition is lessening, as is the recognition that something needs to be done to ring the alarm bells.
The days of giving a player smelling salts or asking them basic questions such as the number of fingers on the trainer or doctor's hand are long over.
Now there are protocols and procedures in place to at least mitigate the damage. It continues to be a work in progress, both in the ability of sports as a whole to decide what is or isn't a legal blow to the head, and the athletes' recognition that they are hurt and need time off to heal.
Hockey star Sidney Crosby had his season ended prematurely by a devastating hit to the head in a game on New Year's Day and a subsequent hit a couple days later. While the Pittsburgh Penguins' captain tried to return for the playoffs, he suffered a relapse of the symptoms that resulted from the hits. Only through complete rest and time will he play again, but whether he can do so at the same level and without the possibility of a recurrence is unknown.
Primeau, who made his declaration of donating his brain to science in an exclusive interview with Sportsnet two years ago, will be in Toronto on Wednesday to talk about the launching of stopconcussions.com, which has been designed to educate players, administrators, physicians, coaches and officials on the cause, effects and consequences of concussions and neurotrauma injuries in all sport. Primeau played with brawn, but his brain simply couldn't take the repeated blows to the head.
Dunigan made his public announcement, also in Toronto, at a media conference by the Canadian Football League. That two media conferences about concussions will happen back-to-back in the same city speaks about how popular the topic is and how you can expect more discussion and proactive measures to promote the seriousness of head trauma and the effects on the brain.
The CFL will promote awareness of concussions through a sheet that identifies its signs and symptoms, management and rehabilitation, guidelines for coaches, players, parents and officials, as well as six steps to follow before allowing players to return to play. The sheet will be distributed to all levels of football, from the grass-roots level all the way to the pros. The umbrella initiative has been initiated with Canadian University Sport (CIS), the Canadian School Sport Federation, the Canadian Football League Players Association, the Canadian Football League Alumni Association, and ThinkFirst, a national charitable foundation dedicated to the prevention of brain and spinal chord injuries and headed up by Dr. Charles Tator, the guru of science in the area of brain injury, concussion and injury prevention. Dr. Tator has been preaching about this topic for several decades. Dunigan's revelation will make him the poster boy for this issue. It is one thing to hand out information sheets and posters; it is quite another to have an individual speak about the subject. Dunigan suffered 12 concussions in his 14-year career, in which he was lauded for being a quarterback who played like a linebacker, refusing to slide or fall down.
"My mentality as a player was if there was an extra yard to gain to make that happen," he said. "If you were playing a pickup game, pre-season, regular, post-season or Grey Cup it didn't matter. I was playing the same way. I played it hard. I initiated a lot of contact in the way I played the game and I paid the price. In fact, it cost me my career in 1996 and I've been paying the price ever since in dealing with post-concussion syndrome."
The problem for professional athletes - hockey, football or otherwise - from Dunigan's era and before the understanding of concussions became the issue it is today, is that the full effects of what they suffered may only be truly known and understood through medical research after their death and the results of the autopsies.
They will become the case studies for years to come.
It was revealed that four former CFL players have donated their brains to Tator's research. While their names have not been formally revealed to respect their families' right to privacy, it was announced recently by the widow of former Hamilton Tiger-Cats star Bobby Kuntz that she donated her husband's brain to Tator's study at Toronto General Hospital to ascertain the cause and neurological effects he suffered from his playing days. In later years, he was diagnosed Alzheimer's Disease. Only through an autopsy could doctors learn more about his specific condition.
"Why are athletes being affected by this brain degeneration? We do not have all the answers," Tator said. "Concussions are no longer thought of as just a ding."
