A study of former National Hockey League players found fighting or highly-penalized players lost a decade of life compared to their peers..Researchers at Columbia University in New York analyzed data from 6,039 NHL players from the expansion year of 1967 until spring 2022..The study, Fighting and Penalty Minutes Associated With Long-term Mortality Among National Hockey League Players was published May 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.."Being an enforcer was associated with dying approximately 10 years earlier and more frequently of suicide and drug overdose than matched controls," authors wrote. ."Re-emphasis on player safety and improving quality of life after a hockey career should renew discussion to make fighting a game misconduct penalty in the NHL.".Two drug overdoses, two neurodegenerative disorder deaths, three suicides and four vehicular crashes were noted among 331 players identified as enforcer-fighters, compared to just one car crash death among the matched control group..The research, led by Dr. Charles Popkin of the Columbia University Medical Center, defined enforcer-fighters as players who fought 50 or more times and compared them to other players of similar height, weight, draft ranking, and on-ice position. Another group of players who averaged three or more penalty minutes per game over their careers were compared to other peers..Average age of death for fighters.More than 90% of players in the study are still alive, with 26 deaths in the enforcer groups and 24 deaths in the control groups. The mean age of death for the fighters was 47.5, but the figure for the control group was 57.7. The heavily penalized died at 45.2 years of age, compared with a mean of 55.2 for the comparative group..“The risks of fighting and repetitive head trauma are a growing concern among player safety advocates,” the authors wrote. .“While fighting accounts for 9% of acute concussions in NHL players, repetitive head trauma may contribute to the development of headaches, depression, personality changes, and cognitive deficits. Later effects include increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and even suicide.”.The authors noted the NHL is the only professional sports league in which players are not ejected from games for fighting. They cited studies showing the number of fights has been decreasing since 1987. ."With declining rates of fighting and a lack of evidence that fighting promotes attendance, winning, or player safety, it is time that the NHL aligns with other professional sports and eliminates fighting," they wrote.
