After suffering an injury on the ice, ice hockey player Adam Johnson tragically passed away. This has sparked new discussions about the dangers of the sport and how players can be better protected.
Johnson, a player for the Nottingham Panthers, passed away on Saturday in Sheffield, UK, following a skate blade cut to his neck. The event was dubbed a “freak accident” by the team.
After playing for two seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL), the 29-year-old Minnesota native was in his first season with the Panthers.
Although it is uncommon, there have been fatal ice injuries before.
Teddy Balkind, a 10th-grade hockey player in Connecticut, died in January 2022 after he fell on ice and was cut on the neck by the skate blade of another player during a game.
Clint Malarchuk suffered a similar cut to the neck in 1989 – though he remarkably survived. During a National Hockey League (NHL) game, Malarchuk – then a goaltender for the Buffalo Sabers – experienced massive blood loss after a player’s skate sliced his carotid artery and jugular vein.
In 2008, Richard Zednick, then of the Florida Panthers, also suffered a similar life-threatening cut and lived.
The skate blade carries “the greatest risk” of catastrophic injury in ice hockey, said Nicole Chimera, an associate professor of kinesiology [the study of human body movement] at Brock University in Ontario.
It also introduces a unique danger that does not exist in other contact sports, like American football or rugby, said Prof Chimera.
Some of those injuries triggered calls for hockey leagues to make neck guards mandatory for protection during games, to minimize the risk of being cut.
In 2010, the Ontario Hockey Association ordered that all its players must wear neck guards after a player’s throat was slashed by a skate blade during a game in Woodstock.
But these guards are not required by many other leagues, including the NHL.
“It is not at every level of hockey, and that is probably something we’re going to see a renewed conversation about,” Prof Chimera said.
On Monday, in the aftermath of Johnson’s death, the English Ice Hockey Association (EIHA) said it would be mandatory to wear a neck guard during “all on-ice activities” from 2024 onwards.
Previously, players in the UK aged over 18 were allowed to play without them.
The Elite League, where Johnson played, has not announced a similar move, and some have spoken out about a stigma in ice hockey against the safety measure.
If you’ve got a neck guard you’re still seen as like a junior,” Great Britain international Abbie Culshaw told BBC Newsbeat. She said players would “wind up” others for wearing a guard and “belittle” them.
“I hope for everyone’s sake that what has happened has changed what people think,” Culshaw said.
