[Bagor]

The NSSAF said in the last five years there have been 149 cases of head injuries reported in high school rugby to the School Insurance Program — more than football, hockey and soccer combined.

But Natalie Randall Price, a certified athletic therapist and osteopath in Dartmouth, N.S., who has studied sports concussions, said those numbers are "absolutely inaccurate."

"It is statistically impossible that there was only one concussion in all of Nova Scotia high school hockey last year," said Randall Price, who has worked with dozens of teams in a variety of sports over the past 20 years, including with her stepson's high school rugby and football teams.

"The federation is in essence punishing an association that has been forthcoming and open and honest with reporting, and that's not the message that we want to be sending that if you're honest and you're forthcoming with reporting that your sport's going to be cancelled on you."

She told CBC's Maritime Noon she believes those involved in rugby are being punished for accurately reporting injuries — something lacking in other high school contact sports.

"We know that rugby, especially as a health-care professional, has been the leader in ensuring that we are reporting them, that we're getting safe treatment and care for the athletes, and we would love to see that being followed in other sports bodies the way that rugby has been leading the charge," she said.

Dr. Rob Green, the provincial medical director of Trauma Nova Scotia, said in a 12-year study on major trauma in pediatric sports, rugby injuries didn't even register enough to be reported.

"Our hypothesis was that actually hockey injuries were the most common," he said. "But we looked at everything from cycling, to hockey, to football, and did look at rugby. Cycling was by far the highest contributor of major trauma in the pediatric population and rugby was not, in fact. It's numbers were too low for me to even report."

The study looked at 107 children between the ages of three and 18 years old who suffered major traumatic injuries. Those included any that were life or limb-threatening, that required a child to be admitted to hospital, for a patient to be put on life support or if they died.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...-ban-1.5121640

Appears to be a decision taken by a few based on an incomplete picture.