Concussion expert: CTE research in former NHL players lagging behind NFL
Dr. Ann McKee tells ESPN says NHL players show milder CTE but in small sample sizes.
A year after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was accused of being "dismissive" in response to research of a potential link between concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), at least one concussion specialist is calling for more posthumous brain donations from hockey players.
Dr. Ann McKee, the director of Boston University's CTE Center, spoke with ESPN's John Cooper about ongoing efforts to track the damages of concussions in hockey. And it is apparent, at least to McKee, that the NHL is still lagging when it comes to CTE findings.
"We're not nearly as far in hockey [research] as we are in football because we just don't have the same numbers," McKee said, per Cooper. "It's not a systematic study, but just anecdotally looking at the players that have come into our brain bank compared to the football players, in general I think the hockey players have less CTE or a milder CTE. But again, this is based on very few numbers and this could change. But I haven't had the experience of seeing many, many advanced CTE cases in hockey like I have in football."