My issue with the enforcer role in this concussion story line is the following. The negative impacts to your health of bare knuckle boxing are not something we are "just learning about" or has been buried by the league up until recently. Everyone has been aware for decades that getting punched in the head is bad for you.
I do agree that the NHL has some responsibility to play here for what they allowed (allow) in the game. But I also feel like the enforcers have to take a huge amount of responsibility for their own health, safety and long term impacts to both. They knowingly chose to make their living throwing punches in the NHL. I'm not on board with a complete displacement of responsibility from those individuals, or even less than the majority of responsibility falling to those individuals.
A lot of dialogue goes around about "what choice" did the enforcer have? The answer is, to not play in the NHL. Most of these players (although Simon may be an exception), weren't good enough to make it in the league on their skills alone. They chose to pursue 6 figure to multi million dollar annual salaries, and they chose to pursue their dream of playing in the NHL and were willing to do so by knowingly accepting the enforcer role. They didn't have to make the big bucks, they didn't have to earn a living playing hockey. They could have made the choice the rest of us did when our dreams of being pro athletes clearly weren't going to work out, pivot, and earn our livings in another fashion.
While I'm not against the NHL accepting and being forced to pay for any damage their negligence their policies may have perpetuate, I don't easily accept that many of these players, especially the enforcers aren't largely responsible for the risks they took knowingly in many cases.
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