[DeluxeMoustache]

Article about Wideman decision dragging on and implications ... much bigger than lost salary

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blo...it-against-NHL

If an arbitrator is persuaded that Dennis Wideman’s cognitive function was impaired by a blow to the head, it would seem to strengthen the argument that there is a clear link between the playing of hockey and brain trauma. Lyle Aspinall/Postmedia Network

....

In Toronto on Wednesday for the World Cup of Hockey announcement, NHLPA executive director Don Fehr was asked about the slow turn of the wheels of justice. His answer, paraphrased: It is what it is.

He’s quite right. As soon as the case moved out of the realm of the NHL’s internal system, it was bound to take more time. And this is the process that was collectively bargained. As much as Wideman feels wronged here, especially when the league does not dispute that he was concussed by an elbow to the head in the moments before he crashed into Henderson, legal hearings aren’t easily fast-tracked.

But his case will be closely watched by the plaintiffs, and their lawyers, in the lawsuit filed in a Minnesota court that charges the NHL with not doing enough to prevent brain injury to its players. As it happens, that lawsuit, which now includes close to 120 retired players, is also plodding along.