Gary Bettman Under Fire as Shocking Scientific Findings Show His Denial of CTE Has Ended 18 Players Lives

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Daniel Lucente
December 4, 2024  (3:59 PM)

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Photo credit: AP Photo/Charles Krupa

New findings released today have revealed that there is a connection between an increase in CTE deaths the longer players stay in hockey over the years, something that has been refuted by Gary Bettman.

Studies out of the Boston University CTE Center finds that longer hockey careers come with greater risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a progressive brain disease secondarily caused by repeated impacts to the head.

The risk increase, after adjusting for age at death, is 34% for every year a player continues to play hockey, according to a study published in 'JAMA Network Open'.

The brains of 77 dead male hockey players revealed CTE in 96% of the pros, and 18 of 19 NHL players, while the disease was observed among 46% of players in college, junior, and semiprofessionals and among 10% of the youth and high school players.

Longer careers were associated with more severe disease, as per Dr. Jesse Mez, lead author of the study, but he cautioned that the findings didn't generalize to the general population of hockey players because most of those in the brain bank had long playing histories in addition to symptoms consistent with CTE.

While football has remained the focus of most CTE research, hockey, with both the sport's relatively meager player population within the United States and a general lack of concussion studies related to the sport, has seen less about its risk.

Mez wants this study to bring into consideration the dangers of long-term participation in hockey and spur changes within the game, something that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has refused to do for the longest time.

The findings are meant to enlighten players, families, and parents considering hockey, besides offering support to the former players showing symptoms of CTE by bringing them closer to the probable long-term results of the sport.

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DÉCEMBRE 4   |   93 ANSWERS Gary Bettman Under Fire as Shocking Scientific Findings Show His Denial of CTE Has Ended 18 Players Lives Does Gary Bettman finally need to make changes regarding the league's stance on CTE?
Yes	81	87.1 %
No	12	12.9 %
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