Crosby Concussion - Steckel vs. Pens Medical Staff

So honest question, does the league need to look at how they handle potential concussion situations or punish players for incidental contact to the head?

but where were the neurological tests on Crosby immediately (or within a day or two) following the Steckel hit?

so you know for a fact that crosby did not receive a baseline neurological test between the winter classic and the tampa bay game? ("He certainly saw doctors.") you know for a fact that green received tests after the pens game? and assuming green was examined thoroughly after the pens game, why was he let out on the ice against the kings only to be put back on the shelf for two weeks? why was he let out on the ice against the rangers only to be put back on the shelf for possibly the rest of the season? was there a mistake in diagnosis? you can’t pretend to know these answers from your seat in front of the internet.

honestly, you have no idea what happened in either locker room. none. the best we can do is look at quotes from players and management, and both claim they followed due diligence. it’s absurd to me that you think you know so much more than the professionals in the penguins locker room, and it’s more absurd to me that you think you are qualified to judge them without all the information. go ahead and play “armchair neurologist” if it makes you feel better, but excuse me while i consider your expertise a load of crock.

Even Bylsma said it looked like incidental contact. So why all the vitriol from Pens fans directed against Steckel? I don’t get it.

because they’re fans, like we’re fans, and they’re looking for someone to blame. they see the steckel-crosby collision differently than we do. believe me, i’ve tried to reason with them. you’ve never disagreed with as assessment from boudreau? we don’t want to think the caps had any part in green’s current condition, and pens fans don’t want to think the pens had any part in crosby’s condition. what’s so confusing about that?

Green’s issues to me sound like something with vertigo attached, which I’ve had, and it makes it hard to walk. The hit in the Rangers game could have spurred a concussion on it’s own, so I dunno. Not to exonerate the Caps medical team, but that’s a weird situation.

Left out of your timeline is the fact that after the LAK game Green saw specialists and was held out of the games out there. At the time I thought that perhaps the initial injury has been affected by the flight out there (swelling for example) and he must not have felt “right” during that LAK game. So they held him out and sent him to specialists. True we have no idea which specialists he saw but I am going to speculate that he had at least some of the neurological tests at this time to check for a concussion. What I remember reading is that he still had a diagnosis of inner ear trauma which had not healed completely.

Even with the second hit, the shoulder to his jaw, has it been confirmed that Green has a concussion? From what I’ve read they are keeping him out because he has had some headaches, but I don’t remember anyone saying he had been diagnosed with a concussion. I get the impression from the statements that it’s more of a cautionary two hits to the head within a month so let’s adopt a wait-and-see approach.

At any rate whatever his injury is he is still capable of going to the White House next Sunday if the NBC report in clips is accurate. So light and noise sensitivity must not be a problem.

As for Crosby—you’re right—none of us really knows what tests he has had and so on. We don’t even know how open the Pens medical staff is—perhaps they are extraordinarily mum about the tests run etc. I certainly am loathe to criticize. It’s just an unfortunate situation: two head hits in consecutive games resulting in a severe concussion. Whether the two incidents are truly linked no one can ever really know.

2) even if it’s "some combination" of those factors, it could very well be 100% sid, 0% pens medical staff. or 75% bylsma, 25% sid, 0% pens medical staff. we have no idea.

Just for clarity’s sake, I meant exactly what you said here; it’s a linear combination of those factors, but the coefficients could well be zero. That’s why I didn’t assign any values, or even ballparks, to them.

1) i disagree. it could be that no one fucked it up, and that hedman’s hit was a freak play that caused the prolonged absence (in the same way it could be that stepan’s hit on mike green might have been the lone cause of green’s current absence).

The tooth fairy could exist, too. Maybe he tripped and hit his head walking down the runway. I’m not advocating drawing absolute conclusions, but I don’t think that discussion without a clear way to get to a correct answer is totally fruitless. I’m not ruling it out, but defining the possible answer space is at least a way to start moving forward. Some things appear more likely than others, especially given prior incidents.

a discussion framed around the culpability of the pens organization strikes me as pointing fingers without the necessary facts. the next logical step for me is, "let’s take mike green’s case and see how unfair it is to point fingers without the necessary facts. bullshit, right?"

Let’s have a look at the post:

To avoid that from happening, let me add this:
Let’s assume Steckel’s hit was the one that gave Crosby the concussion or at least concussion-like symptoms. Why did the Pens training/medical staff allow him to play in the next game? Perhaps Steckel was the load on the camel’s back and Hedman was the straw that sent the camel crashing. If Steckels hit was the big one, Crosby should have never set foot on the ice for the next game.

I don’t think that’s an unfair statement. It even lines up with what you were saying about other possibilities, assigns a given, then draws a conclusion from that given hypothesis. No where is it stated definitively that anything happened except that if Steckel’s hit was indeed the primary cause of injury, there’s no way Crosby should have been on the ice for the TBL game. I don’t think that’s an unfair conclusion to draw.

I feel like I’ve seen (heard) him somewhere else. All I could find on his Wiki, however, is a couple of appearances on NHL on the Fly.

Errey is on On the Fly occasionally. Personally, I find him incredible obnoxious and a giant homer no matter where he is working.

There is a huge difference. Green was cleared to return after a lengthy absence, so the team had plenty of time to check him out. Crosby had no absence at all. Maybe the Caps should have let Green sit longer, but there’s a good chance he was fine. With Crosby, there’s no chance of that – not with the way he was shaken up from Steckel’s hit.

In both cases the medical staff cleared the player to return.

There has been zero evidence to this in the Crosby case. In fact, at first the Pen’s organization vehemently denied that the Steckel hit was to blame, it was only after that we realize that Crosby and the players admit to their partialness between the two hits.

I believe both organizations are throwing rocks while in glass houses, but it’s funny that:

1. Pens are seemingly twice as glass housed employing Matt Cooke, Brooks Orpik, Derryk Engelland, and Evgeni Malkin, all of which have little regard to players heads and well being.
2. Mario Lemieux makes public statements about his favorite Garage League after a game in retaliation to such players disregard.
3. Crosby claims to be a clean player because of his lack of penalties, yet Steckel’s statistics when it comes to hits does not seem to apply.
4. His team expects Steckel to answer the bell when Matt Cooke did not.
5. This is the organization that single handedly ended Marc Savard’s career.

I full on agree with your sentiment. I have a couple problems.

1. Were dealing with a character who over reacted in previous situations and more than likely hammed up the situation.
2. Were calling into question a culture of hockey players and a culture of medical professions which I will easily admit has a blurred line because we are talking about people employed by and self interested int he team not the player.
3. We are giving zero accountability here. If the player is unable, the medical staff is unable, the coach is unable. Someone has to be able to say, look, you are risking your life (beyond the heart beating sense), by going out there, it’s in NO ONES interest for you to continue.

i guess the problem for the clinician is "when should i require a player to be rested in lieu of symptoms." there are so many instances where contact is made with a player’s head, whether it’s direct contact from another player or contact with the boards/ice, i can only imagine it’s a very difficult call to make.

This is so unfortunate. I’d like to think people who take a Hippocratic Oath know the difference. Erring on the side of caution would make so much of this go away.