Sidney Crosby, Eric Lindros, Bobby Crawford, Kent Lewis and Steven Schmidt all have three things in common. First, each wasn’t wearing skates very long before he had a burning desire to play in the National Hockey League; second, certainly all of them had a love for hockey. Sadly, the third thread shared by this group is the dark side of hockey—concussions.
Crawford was a long-time player and coach for Powell River Regals. Lewis was a player and is now head coach of Powell River Kings and Schmidt is on the Kings’ roster this season.
All five players have experienced the effects of concussion but until Crosby’s public battle to return from the injury, most were dismissed as part of the game and mild in nature with treatment varying from smelling salts to prescribed inactivity.
Ironically, hockey’s greatest loss could be its biggest gain. Crosby’s injury is drawing unprecedented attention to an injury that is virtually invisible. His experience validates the difficulties others have had in the past and supports those who suffer from the injury now.
Had a player, such as Wayne Gretzky, suffered the same injury in the 1980s that Crosby has now, perhaps the attention and subsequent treatment to deal with the injury may have helped players such as Toronto Maple Leafs’ Wade Belak who took his own life or Keith Primeau, former Philadelphia Flyer, who battles post-concussion symptoms every day.
It’s an injury that occurs in all levels of hockey and certainly the Kings are no exception. Bobby Tyson was a young defenceman who came to Powell River in 2005 from his home in The Woodlands, Texas. He had dreams of obtaining a National Collegiate Athletic Association scholarship through BC Hockey League.
Like many active children, he experienced his first concussion while playing with friends and he chose a sport that would add to that number.
“I lost consciousness,” he remembered of his fall, “but didn’t have any issues, just felt woozy and drunk afterward. The next day I woke up feeling fine with no issues.”
During hockey season when he was 18 years old, he was in a scouting camp where he was hit in the chin by a helmet and had a light concussion. Again, he felt fine the next day.
Two months later he joined the Kings. In a game against Cowichan Valley Capitals he moved to bodycheck Gary Nunn whose helmet hit him in the chin. “I didn’t feel too bad,” he reported, “but that night I had just one beer and I came to find out that’s the worst thing you can do with a concussion.”
He went to practice the next day but felt terrible. During the back-skating drills he felt nauseous and left the ice. “I didn’t know what was going on,” he said, “I just went home and slept. The next eight weeks I spent in my own little dark hole up in my billet’s house and was really anti-social with the team, didn’t want to be around anybody, couldn’t work out, couldn’t skate, watch TV, read, couldn’t do anything.”
Tyson could barely use his computer and was sleeping 14 hours a day. “On Google I learned that, through a chemical change in the brain, I was probably suffering from post-concussion syndrome.”
Sidelined by inactivity and frustration, the youngster ached to get back into the game he was only watching.
“I would think I was better and say ‘Okay coach I think I’m better’ and they would say ‘okay, go ride the bike’ and I’d still feel nauseous,” he recalled. “All right, back to square one I was told.”
Indefinite recovery time and the absence of a sling, cast or visible injury adds to the stress of concussion victims. “People started wondering if it was even real. They were asking ‘why is this taking so long?’ and ‘what is going on with you?’ and ‘do you even want to come back and play?’”
His answer was “Yes I do,” but he remembered thinking, “but I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why is this happening?”
When he eventually got back on the ice, he separated his shoulder and missed the remainder of his first season. He rejoined the team in the playoffs against Cowichan during which a shot from Clinton Pettapiece deflected off teammate Adam Presizniuk’s stick and hit him in the mouth.
He was stitched up but felt woozy and after a couple of more shifts felt fearful with the all-too-familiar symptoms.
Kings’ doctor, Dr. Steyn Naude took a look at him and said, “You’re done.”
Kings already had injured defencemen. Tyson clearly remembers coach Mike Vandekamp saying, “Get back out on the ice or you’re going back to Texas with your dad.”
In fairness to Vandekamp, aside from the medical community, concussions at that time were merely a headache to the game and his opinion was shared by many coaches all the way up to the NHL level.
Tyson did not go back into the game.
He was traded to Grande Prairie Storm the next year and played injury-free. The following season he was again hit in the chin and re-entered the concussion cycle.
“I tried everything to deal with the symptoms,” Tyson said, recalling his desperation. “I found acupuncture worked the best. After two-hour long sessions my symptoms had gone away completely and I was back working out a few days after that.”
He managed to avoid further damage during the year and happily enjoyed success with Vandekamp (who left the Kings in 2007) and the Storm as they won the Alberta Junior Hockey League championship before losing in the Doyle Cup to Vernon Vipers.
He secured a scholarship with Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. In his freshman year, playing against Dartmouth, he suffered another mild concussion that caused him to miss one week. Near the end of that year he took another hit in a game against Brown University but after assessment he was able to finish the playoffs.
In his second year with Quinnipiac, Tyson’s hockey career ended in twisted irony.
He returned for the playoffs against Union College in New York. “Adam, now on the opposing team, is on the ice and I’m battling him in the corner. He hits me high, straight in the head. I watched the video where I kind of go limp and fall back and hit my head again on the ice. I knew it was a concussion,” he recalled vividly. “It was an extremely, extremely depressing moment when I skated back to the bench. I just knew that that was probably it for me.”
Many calls came from coaches to inquire about his return, Tyson said. “After a lot of thought and a lot of prayer, I decided to call it a career and get started on professional life.”
Fortunately he was able to accelerate his education at Quinnipiac to complete his junior year and is currently completing his finance degree at University of Houston in Texas.
With limited issues now, Tyson considers himself to be very lucky and offers this advice to young players. “If you get hit and after that hit you feel goofy, you know it’s a concussion. Just sit it out. There’s no sense in playing any more shifts that game,” he said. “You can wake up the next day, be fine and have no symptoms or you can go back out and get hit again and potentially die.”
He advises, “Be smart about it,” adding wisely, “you’re older a lot longer than you are younger.”
This is the first in a five-part series on concussions in hockey.
