The NHL Player Association's director Marty Walsh announced the formation of a CTE Advisory Committee last night in Boston, a much needed initiative.

A couple of weeks ago, the Montreal Canadiens team was rocked by a big bodycheck from New York Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba on Justin Barron. The bone-crushing hit was acclaimed by the "old-time hockey" fans, the Don Cherry's Rock Em Sock Em loving crowd who love to see players pay the price for "watching their own pass." 

There was no penalty on the play because, according to Rule 48, it was a legal hit. Reading the provision, there's no argument to be made; it was legal. That's not the point, though. Whether or not it deserved a penalty according to the NHL rule, the end result was Barron getting a blow to the head on the hit and, on landing on the ice, already out of it. 

To counter the above-mentioned crowd, you have men of science who warn about the dangers of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and its dangerous effect on the human brain. A particular form of brain damage is known to have affected a lot of athletes who took part in hard-hitting sports. In 2016, the NFL acknowledged the link between playing American football and developing CTE, which has many symptoms, including depression and memory loss. 

Numerous former NFL players were diagnosed with CTE after their death, so much so that the biggest league in America settled a lawsuit and made some serious changes to its rulebook to protect its players better, which are, really, its most precious asset. 

In 2018, the NHL settled a lawsuit with 318 former players, agreeing to pay them $19M while denying any responsibility. Still, for years, CTE has been talked about, and as numerous enforcers kept dying early, the autopsy of their brains revealed they had CTE. In 2017, legendary goaltender Ken Dryden released the very successful book Game Change in which he tells the life and times of former NHL Steve Montador, who, like former tough guys Todd Ewen and Bob Probert but also star Stan Mikita and six-time Stanley Cup Champion Ralph Backstrom had CTE. 

CTE is a real threat to the health of NHLers and not just those who fight, but those like Barron or Kaiden Guhle, for instance, who have suffered multiple concussions. With the league still in denial of its responsibility for the proliferation of brain damage amongst its former players and therefore unlikely to amend its rulebook as the NFL did, the decision by the NHLPA to form a CTE Advisory Committee is a huge step forward.

The committee will include 10 active players and aim to have one member per team in the future. It will be guided by medical experts well versed in the topic of CTE. The committee's formation was unanimously approved by the NHLPA executive board in June and is expected to meet a few times a year. The name of the player who will chair it has yet to be divulged.

I genuinely hope to see all kinds of players on that committee because a critical step in addressing this issue is understanding it is not limited to enforcers but can also strike those receiving massive hits. 

Armed with plenty of medical studies and explanations by scientists at the forefront of research on CTE, the players will be able to better understand the risks and circumstances, decide what they consider to be acceptable, and proceed from there. 

After reading Game Change and various studies on the topic, I am convinced that the NHL must do more to protect its players, much like the NFL did, better late than never as they say. Unfortunately for fans of gargantuan hits, the solution might be to banish all hits to the head by rewriting Rule 48. The players have to be protected, and the days of blaming the victim must be put behind us. 

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