Former Canadiens Dryden On Head Injuries And The Preseason

The Montreal Canadiens have had plenty of great goaltenders, but one of them was in attendance at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night as the team honoured its 1970s dynasty.

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Ken Dryden wore the pads for the Sainte-Flanelle in those years, and while he was an amazing goaltender, he’s also an incredibly accomplished man in other fields. He has been a great lawyer, a politician, and an impactful author.

Personally, I find his book Game Change to be a masterpiece, and I couldn’t resist asking him about injuries in the game and the relevance of the pre-season. Since he has always advocated for change when needed, I asked him how he felt about the pre-season, given the onslaught of injuries we saw this year. On head injuries, he explained:

There is a problem with head injuries, there continues to be a problem with head injuries, and there will continue to be a problem if there is not a far greater focus on it. A hit to the head is not a good thing, a lot of hits to the head are not good things and that’s just easy, it’s just simple. […] It’s one of those things that anybody knows and everybody has experienced. You get hit in the knee very often, your knee doesn’t work as well, you get hit in the elbow or in the shoulder, then your shoulder doesn’t work. Well, it’s the same with your brain and a wonky knee is one thing, but a wonky brain is something else. A wonky brain changes a life. That’s that part of the story.

I swear I didn’t know that by the end of the game, Justin Barron would have been knocked out by a Jacob Trouba hit to the head, which, of course, went unpunished. By the referees, at least since Mike Matheson took it upon himself to stand up for his fallen teammate. Unfortunately for the Canadiens, that didn’t go unpunished, and the alternate captain was given a misconduct for initiating a fight.

As for the relevancy of exhibition games, here is what the living legend had to say:

In terms of exhibition games, I mean, I know how players work out over the Summer, I watch them in certain gyms in Toronto, and they’re pretty close to ready to start the season when they arrive at training camp. It allows six or seven or ten players that are on the margins to have a chance to possibly break through. And I would also assume that so far as the teams are concerned, they kind of like as many exhibition games as possible, because the ticket prices are what they are. You can certainly revisit all of that, and I’m sure the league and the players’ association are doing that in terms of exhibition games.

I’m hoping he’s right, and the exhibition games are part of the new collective bargaining agreement negotiations. Is it really worth the extra ticket money if you lose some of your best players? I dare say it is not.

Related: Canadiens: Dryden Sees Price in the Rafters

I would have loved to hear Mr. Dryden’s comments after tonight’s game, which ended up being a stark reminder of the need for the league to step in and crack down on head injuries.

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