In Canada, men account for three out of every four suicides – with seven men dying by suicide every day – but our support programs fall short
By John Oliffe and Britney Dennison Men’s Health Research University of British Columbia Jason was in Grade 5 when he started having feelings for other boys. Because of those feelings, he was called names, beaten up in school and sexually assaulted. Since high school, Jason has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic…
How do we level the playing field when male-to-female athletes want to compete against biological females?
Mixed martial arts fighter Tamikka Brents had never felt anyone or anything like the blows that sent her to the hospital in 2014. Fallon Fox hit Brents so hard that she suffered a broken skull. Despite the brutal loss, observers didn’t wonder whether Brents should be in the ring. They wondered about Fox, a male-to-female…
Head-first tackles, helmet swinging and devastating hip injuries all add to a game’s growing reputation for chaos
A couple incidents from last week’s football action have garnered a lot of media and fan attention: Myles Garrett’s bonehead use of Mason Rudolph’s helmet as a weapon and the terrible hip injury to Alabama’s star quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. First, the Garrett situation. Twitter-verse is afire with emotional chatter about banning Garrett from the National…
Those who booed retiring Indianapolis Colt Andrew Luck should be ashamed of themselves. Athletes aren’t warriors created by central casting for our weekend enjoyment
Too many sports fans view athletes as robots designed to play games for their entertainment. They sit in the stands or on their sofas, a cold beer in their hands, and yell at injured players for being “too soft” and “not tough enough.” They think jocks should just “suck it up” and get on the…
Injury research through analytics should be priority one, since baseball owners spent $745,769,319 on injured list players in 2018 alone
Baseball has an injury problem. It’s a big one. And an expensive one. As but one recent example – albeit an extreme one – the New York Yankees had 13 players on the injured list by the end of April, just one month into the 2019 season! Major League Baseball (MLB) franchises are filled with…
Commissioner Gary Bettman never backed up or hinted the NHL might have had a problem related to head injuries to players
It used to be a staple of TV game shows. The grinning host on the stage. The dishevelled contestant looking dazed before him. “Do you want the $100 I’m holding in my hand … or would you like what’s behind the curtain up on stage?” Music, cheering, pandemonium. Maybe it was a new set of…
CTE isn’t just a pro football Issue; college and high school players are also at risk, and the damage can be life-altering
Most people associate chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease caused by repetitive brain trauma, with professional football – specifically retired Canadian Football League and National Football League players. But CTE is more than a pro football issue. While the Boston University CTE Center has discovered CTE in the brains of 110 of 111…
The only way to significantly reduce brain trauma is greatly reducing the number of full-contact practices and scrimmages
Helmet makers, along with some coaches, athletic directors and youth sports administrators would like you to believe that there are football helmets available that will greatly reduce the risk of brain trauma and concussions. To put it nicely, they’re misleading you. The reality is there’s very little a helmet can do to prevent brain trauma and…
By John Oliffe and Britney Dennison Men’s Health Research University of British Columbia Jason was in Grade 5 when he started having feelings for other boys. Because of those feelings, he was called names, beaten up in school and sexually assaulted. Since high school, Jason has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic…
