So a bunch of Canadian farmboys should have put "two and two together" about how playing woozy (ie, not being a p****) could give them long term brain damage by simply researching the affects in the relatively few studies researching it at the time? It's not like these guys had Google Scholar to dig through scientific studies to determine whether or not it was safe for them to keep playing. So where they supposed to dig through some Johns Hopkins research papers in the university library they don't have access to, written in language they likely don't understand all between shifts while their coach is screaming at them to "get back on the ice, you puff!" or they'll lose thier jobs? I'm pretty sure that's what doctors are for.
When finishing highschool in the 70's, my dad had the choice to play for the Saskatoon Blades, or get a full ride to Yale. His parents chose Sask for him because they didn't know what Yale was. That is where most of these guys come from. A lot of them barely got through highschool. To expect them to make intelligent minute-to-minute decisions about their health based on the fact that some research was publically available is pretty ridiculous and almost insulting. If that research was available to joe-blow hockey player, what kind of information was available to the actual doctors employed by the teams that was seemingly ignored by teams? How can someone actually stomach themselves when saying something like that?
So a made up example:
Doc: Well MattyC, doesn't seem to me that your arm is broken and you shouldn't sustain any longterm issues because of it.
MattyC: Ok, you're the guy who went to medical school for a decade.
ten years later I need shoulder surgery and a bone re-break and go back to my doctor to say WTF?
Doc: Well, if you had done your own research you would have found that your arm actually was broken. It's all publically available.
F*** yourself.
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