Yes, Gary Bettman Is An Idiot Regarding CTE. But He Has A Few Valid Points
Booooooooooooooooooooooooo…………. alright, we got that out of our system now? One more? Fine. But that’s it. Boooooooooooooooooooo…. okay that’s enough. Let’s get into this a bit because yesterday Gary Bettman said some pretty idiotic things in regards to the connection between repeated concussions and CTE. Idiotic things such as that he doesn’t know if that link even exists. Via NYTimes:
Now obviously all the headlines today are going to be along the lines of calling Bettman a caveman who still thinks the Earth is flat for dismissing the connection between concussions and CTE. Everybody with at least half a brain realizes the two are related (no pun intended). I’m not here to defend him on that. But he does make a few points that, unless you are full-blown Hockey Twitter and have lost all capability of thinking rationally without getting outraged about everything, you cannot dismiss yourself. Mainly that it’s the goddamn fear mongering media that is more detrimental to player safety than the repetitive head trauma. A take that will most certainly be the front-runner for next year’s Takies presented by Pardon My Take. Again, via NYTimes:
Mr. Bettman repeatedly blamed the media for spreading the fear of C.T.E., and accused the plaintiffs in the concussion case for a public relations assault on the topic.
There aren’t enough fire emojis in the world to properly describe that statement. However, just becasue something is a quote-unquote Hot Take doesn’t mean that there can’t be some validity to it. Which is where Bettman was able to cherry pick a sad, yet crucial, event to strengthen his argument.
And that’s the thing. Does everybody who suffers from CTE also suffer from multiple head injuries? Yes. But does everybody who has suffered multiple concussions end up with CTE? No. And I guess that’s where the media hype has to take a little bit of the blame. Journalists think they’re doing athletes a service by putting concussion issues at the forefront of the news. And don’t get me wrong, they are. But maybe it is a little too much without all the research there to put everything in place. Because it ends up being the same thing as when you have a minor cold, check WebMD and you end up diagnosing yourself with cancer after 20 seconds. Some guys may just be depressed with life after hockey or life after any sport. Unfortunately, however, they think that the depression is just a symptom of CTE and panic because it is a irreversible brain disease without being able to pinpoint whether it’s actually CTE or not. Guys like Todd Ewen could have continued getting treatment for depression but with CTE stories getting pimped out every other hour, you can see how easy it would be for him to feel like he’s in a hopeless spot.
So yes, Gary Bettman is an idiot for at least not acknowledging the link between concussion and CTE. But we still don’t know exactly why it is that some players suffer from this disease while others do not. So until there is more research done on that, it seems a little unfair to just make the claim that repeated head injuries alone are what cause CTE instead of repeated head injuries coupled with anything else. Until then, just educate the players on the risk they run and try to make the game safer. I think that Bettman is in favor of both of those things. It’s not like he’s sitting at home in a padded room plotting the mental breakdown of hockey players everywhere.