Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

In his first year as a pro, Victor Hedman already has one concussion to his resume.

EDMONTON — For all the words spent on the National Hockey League’s growing problem with concussions, Sheldon Souray figures you can get rid of 90 percent of them with two words:

“Heads up!”

“I do it — and guys have done it for me,” Souray said this week. “As a matter of fact it happened at the end of (Saturday’s Washington) game, against Ovechkin. I was going to hit him and said, ‘Head’s up!’ You know. ‘It’s comin’!’”

He’s fine with a hard hit, and like most NHLers, Souray says of Mike Richards’ hit on David Booth “there is an element of risk to this game.” Injurious mistakes — like Jarome Iginla’s inadvertent trip that cost Souray 16 games with a concussion — are never going to be eliminated from the game.

But it is time for the players to put an end to the needless, high hits that happen along the boards and in the corners, delivered by players who need to know better.

“The responsibility, a lot of it, doesn’t really fall on a committee or the league, or general managers cracking down. It’s the players,” Souray told sportsnet.ca. “Ultimately it’s the players who go out there and see opportunities when guys are vulnerable.

“You don’t have to knock a guy out for a month. It’s unnecessary,” he continued. “It doesn’t make you any tougher, it doesn’t gain you any more respect among the group. It has no purpose. It is so unnecessary to go out there and follow through when you know there is a chance (of injury).

“This has to fall on the players. Absolutely has to.”

Just so you are aware of the split this issue has inside an NHL dressing room, just a few stalls over Shawn Horcoff — the Oilers union rep — put the onus on the league to solve the problem with suspensions.

“I think it should be an automatic penalty. It doesn’t matter if it is intentional or not,” Horcoff said. “You have to protect the players.

“The (NHL)PA can only do so much. It’s up to the league to make the rules.”

There are two cliché excuses that follow this issue around. Souray put rest to both in a passionate dissertation on headshots that have threatened his career, and the careers of many fellow players throughout a 12-year NHL career.

First, some people say that limiting headshots will constrict hitting in the NHL. Asking players to tap on the brakes when they see the opponent is vulnerable would threaten the career of third- and fourth-liners who make their living banging bodies. These guys have to finish their checks or find another job.

“It begins with accountability to your teammates,” Souray said. “Someone on your team should say to you, ‘What are you trying to prove?’ Maybe a coach can echo those sentiments. Not maybe — he should be doing that.

“As peers who have seen teammates go through it, seen opposition guys go through it — seen guys retire from it — it’s a real problem. We have to be more accountable to each other as players — not to the league, to pay a $5000 fine and miss a game.”

The second cliché is that the game happens too fast, and players don’t always recognize that an opponent has head down and is vulnerable. “We know what we’re doing,” Jarome Iginla told me once. “It’s not that fast.”

“Jarome has a good point there. Our minds are trained to click,” Souray said. “You can make a perfect pass on a break-out under pressure in a split second. You can put the puck top shelf, and make a last second move to beat the goalie in a split second. Are you telling me you can’t ease up?”

Other than the flagrant head shots along the boards and in the corners, the other hit that the game no longer needs is the one that punishes the player for admiring his pass. Like the one Scott Stevens laid on Paul Kariya in the 2003.

“There was probably a good two or three count,” Kariya said this week. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three… And then the hit.”

What is clear by the mounting injuries, is that something has to change. Perhaps the first thing is where the hockey establishment priorizes head injuries.

Having just had a major concussion, Souray has gained some perspective.

“It’s something that scares you, because you think, ‘This is a life changing thing. This isn’t, I’ll just repair my shoulder, even if I can’t play again.’

“This is something (where you think), ‘What if I sleep, all the time? What if I can’t get out of bed because I’m too crabby?’ Those aren’t the 'what-ifs?' That’s what’s happening.”

The NHL general managers will come up with a rule to address the issue at their March meetings.

A little common sense among players — and the odd “Heads up!” — would go a lot further, a lot faster.