CBC.ca
Concussions three times as likely for peewee bodycheckers: study
Dec. 12, 20008
A joint university study suggests a case can be made for raising the bodychecking age
and limiting bodychecking leagues across the board.
Using Alberta and Quebec as examples, the study shows that peewee hockey players
in a checking league are more likely to get injured and even more likely to get a
concussion than players in non-checking leagues.
Essentially were seeing a significantly increased risk of all injury, said Dr. Carolyn
Emery, from the department of kinesiology at the University of Calgary.
Peewee, ages 11 and 12, is when bodychecking begins in Alberta players in Quebec
don’t bodycheck until bantam, and even then it's only introduced at the elite levels of the
game.
Emery, along with colleagues from the University of Calgary, McGill University, and the
University of Laval, tracked 2,200 peewee players from both provinces for the entire
2007-08 season to measure injury frequency.
What they found was that peewee players in Alberta were 2.5 times more likely to get
hurt and 3.5 times more likely to suffer a concussion than the peewee players they
tracked in Quebec. Albertans playing peewee hockey were also three times more likely
to sustain injuries that kept them off the ice for more than a week.
Players were most likely to get hurt after a hit in Alberta, and as a result of incidental
contact in Quebec.
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