Breaking down the new 15 minute concussion rule that will be implemented as of Wednesday
BOCA RATON, FLA. - Up until now, Gary Bettman hasn't let anyone get inside the heads of his general managers.
They didn't bow this week to the outside demands for an automatic penalty every time a shoulder contacts a player's head, nor did they flinch on Max Pacioretty, obstinately refusing to even show video of the hit at the GM meetings.
"There's a body of work over a year that you have to take into consideration, not the most recent issues," said San Jose GM Doug Wilson. "As a general manager, I'll say (this was) one of the better meetings we've ever been part of."
But then, as the various "caretakers of the game" scurried to catch planes to 30 NHL locales, news leaked out Wednesday that the new 15-minute concussion time out would be invoked for games that same night.
It came from Nashville GM David Poile, not from Bettman or any of his lieutenants.
"Just like the protocol that's starting tonight in the league for the players that we suspect might have an injury or be concussed," said Poile, more by way of conversation than announcement. "You take a 15 minute timeout. It's a huge change. A very caring change to make sure that we're right."
Wait a second, David. This is going into practice tonight?
"Yes," Poile confirmed. "They have to go into the dressing room to be with your doctor and your trainer, and they go over all the criteria. There's a test they're going to have to perform and give them a little bit of time to make sure they get to their senses and they're ready and willing to come back."
It is 15 minutes of real time that the player will be held out of the game. Not 15 minutes on the game clock.
It didn't take 15 minutes, of course, for the subsequent reactions to begin rolling in.
It wasn't that the GMs as a whole are against the concussion time out. How could you oppose something like that?
But the details were so sketchy, the questions so plentiful, that it appeared for the first time this week that the league had rushed this half-baked cake out of the oven simply to appease the chorus of voices calling for them to act.
"Yeah, they're still working on the protocol, but it does take effect (Wednesday night) and the loose ends are being tied up," said NHL V.P. Colin Campbell. "It's a pretty tough protocol to deal with. What is deemed a concussion? I don't want to go there yet. We're still trying to nail it down."
And they were still trying to nail it down, no doubt, several hours later in Raleigh, Detroit, Vancouver and Anaheim, the four sites of NHL action as the NHL began its brave new era on Wednesday.
"We don't play until Sunday, so we've got some time to figure it out," said Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero, who asked the most pertinent question surrounding the use of an in-house doctor to make the final call on whether or not a player may return to the ice.
"What's going to happen when our doctor says that Alex Ovechkin can't go back in (to a game)," asked Shero.
What's going to happen, we'll add, when the trainer sits a player in the heat of a playoff race?
And the player says: "*&#@ you, pal. I'm not going anywhere."
What about if two players appear to be concussed on the same play? Who gets the first 15 minutes with the doctor?
Do we have neutral doctors for the playoffs? They do start in a month.
When your average patient makes $1.4 million, and you're the guy who decides whether he gets to go out and risk another concussion or not, how massive is the bill for malpractice insurance? And who's paying that?
Who wins the fight between a coach who wants his best players on the ice, and a fastidious team doctor who errs on the side of holding possibly concussed players out of games?
Will teams have to travel a doctor around, and compensate him as such? Right now, only Chicago travels a doctor. Obviously that will change.
Yes, the 15 minute time out made an inauspicious debut as these meetings wrapped up Wednesday in Boca Raton, Florida.
You can't say the GMs didn't accomplish anything here. They did.
But how is it all going to work? You may get a concussion trying to figure it all out.
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