Something needs to change

Ken Dryden says something needs to change.

The Hall of Fame goalie and former president of the Toronto Maple Leafs doesn't like seeing all the head injuries and cheap shots that are prevalent in the game of hockey today and wants the mentality associated with regular season play to change.

"How many serious cheap shots that lead to head injuries … happen in the playoffs?" Dryden asked while appearing on PTS on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Tuesday.

"We all say to ourselves, 'that is the best hockey we watch all year long.' When is the other best hockey that we watch? It is in World Cup championship games and Olympic games and so on. That's when the best hockey is played, when the non-cheap shot guys are allowed onto the ice and everybody else competes like crazy, fights like crazy, has contact like crazy, but doesn't have crazy contact."

Dryden believes the National Hockey League seems to be in a situation where they don't know exactly what to do to put an end to head shots, but the league and the public are coming to terms with the fact there is a serious problem.

"I think it is only partially being addressed and I think that … people are still coming to grips with it, more coming to grips with it all the time," Dryden said.

"I think it's less a matter of the awareness of the problem. I think there are so many instances and so many players and so much coverage of those players leaving the ice and being out indefinitely that people are aware.

"The key now is to move from awareness to something. That's where it gets harder. It is always much easier to see a problem than it is to see an answer to a problem. And sometimes you decide not to see a problem because you don't see the answer to the problem and you pretend that there isn't a problem because you don't know what the solution is."

The NHL made an effort to increase fines and suspensions by hiring former player Brendan Shanahan as the league's head disciplinarian. Since Shanahan began his new role, he has issued 31 suspensions for a total of 105 man games lost and $1,749,416.33 in forfeited salary.

But even with the increased punishment, disciplinary hearings for questionable hits happen on a weekly basis.

Dryden suggested that he would like to see an annual conference where the sports world could address the issue of concussions and head injuries by looking at different, innovative ways to prevent them in the future.

He suggested having former athletes as guest speakers -- but instead of telling the story of how they got their concussion -- tell the story of what their life has been like since the last concussion they sustained. Dryden said the conference could also look at what could be done to help curb the concussion problem in sports by having medical professionals, equipment manufacturers and the people that run the facilities contribute.

"We're almost at a state where the media and the NHL and the public is starting to say 'yes there's a problem, yes it's a serious problem' but it's almost coming to a point of shrugging the shoulders and saying 'well because we don't know the answer is, I guess the answer is we have to live with it, and after all, these guys are really well paid and that's the risk they take and so I guess that's how life is.'

"That is where we are, and we need to move beyond there."

Dryden was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983 and had his No. 29 retired by the Montreal Canadiens in 2007. Despite playing just seven full seasons in the NHL, Dryden won six Stanley Cups, five Vezina Trophies as the league top goaltender and finished his career with a record of 258-57-74.