Brain Damage Found in Hockey Player

A deceased professional hockey player has been found to have had brain damage associated with repeated head trauma, connecting hockey for the first time to health risks linked to boxers and, most recently, football players.
Reggie Fleming, a defenseman and left wing known for fighting as much as scoring in a long career from 1959 to 1974, was found by Boston University researchers to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease known to cause cognitive decline, behavioral abnormalities and ultimately dementia. Fleming died in July at age 73 and was the first hockey player known to have been tested for the disease, known as C.T.E.

Fleming’s having had C.T.E. will stoke further debate in the National Hockey League this season over rules to decrease player concussions. Eleven former National Football League players have been found to have the same disease, catalyzing questions of football’s long-term health risks and miring the N.F.L. in three years of controversy over its handling of brain injuries.

“Boxing we’ve known for a long time, football we’ve recently become aware of — now hockey,” said Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University and the Bedford Veterans Administration Medical Center, who similarly diagnosed C.T.E. in several former N.F.L. players. “Repetitive head injuries can have very serious long-term consequences, regardless of how you get them.”

Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner of the N.H.L., said in a statement that the league would have no comment on McKee’s diagnosis until it “had a chance to read and digest it.”

“This very preliminary finding will set forth a hypothesis for further scientific research,” said Jonathan Weatherdon, a spokesman for the N.H.L. Players Association.

The N.H.L. and the N.H.L. Players Association jointly administer the league’s protocol for players returning from concussions, which has been in place since 1997-98. The program was the first in pro sports to mandate independent baseline and postconcussion neuropsychological testing, as well as clearance from independent doctors before a player can return to game action. A similar protocol was adopted by the N.F.L. only last month.

In recent years the N.H.L. has experienced several incidents of head injuries to its players. But unlike in Fleming’s day, most of today’s concussions are caused by checks to the head delivered at high speed with players’ shoulder pads. The league’s general managers have consistently declined to take steps curbing such hits, which are legal under N.H.L. rules.

However, last month they agreed to form a committee to study the issue, and a recommendation for new rules designed to cut down on hits that resulted in concussions was expected before the end of the season.

Checks to the head are barred in the Ontario Hockey League, the top developmental league for aspiring professional players, and at international tournaments like the Olympics. Any blow to the head in those games results in an automatic penalty.

At the N.H.L. Board of Governors meeting at Pebble Beach, Calif., this week, the Anaheim Ducks’ general manager, Bob Murray, distilled the cautious stance being taken by league executives.

“You’ve got to be careful what you do when you talk about rule changes,” Murray said. “Hitting is part of our game, and you don’t want to change the fundamental nature of the game.”

Fleming relished his persona as one of the most bruising players of his era, in which fights featured bare fists punching helmetless skulls. (During his seasons with the Rangers from 1966 through 1970, he spent so much time in the Madison Square Garden penalty box that he once joked, “I got my mail delivered there.”) Fleming spent 12 full seasons in the N.H.L. from 1960 to 1971 — playing 749 games, scoring 108 goals and compiling 1,468 penalty minutes — before finishing his career with two seasons in the World Hockey Association.

Fleming’s son, Chris, said in an interview this week that his father never knew how many concussions he had sustained playing hockey. That number, as well as if or how they were treated, will most likely never be known because such records were not kept in his era, if they were considered injuries at all.

Chris Fleming said that his father went through decades of emotional problems after retiring. He was found to be manic depressive in his early 40s, drank excessively during that period, and exhibited striking short-term memory problems in his late 50s. Chris Fleming said that his father had trouble controlling his temper his entire life — that was one of the reasons for his hockey success — but that it worsened post-retirement.