Former NHL official breaks silence on prevalence of concussions among refs
Former NHL official Paul Stewart is one of the hidden victims of the concussion epidemic. Stewart said in a recent interview with The Guardian that he estimates he suffered approximately 25-26 concussions over the course of his playing and officiating career combined.
Stewart comes from a hockey family. His father, Bill Stewart Jr., was also a referee, and he was once given last rites after he hit his head refereeing a Boston College hockey game. Stewart Jr. recovered from the blow and went back to work a month later.
Like his father, Paul Stewart has suffered many blows to the head as a hockey referee. And like his father and most officials in the NHL and junior hockey leagues, Stewart never complained. Concussions remained a taboo topic. You did not speak up, Stewart said in a lengthy interview with The Guardian, because you did not want to be seen as weak or worse.
"I don’t think we ever talked about (concussions)," Stewart told The Guardian. "We feared for our jobs."
Concussions are now a hot topic in sports. Will Smith is even starring in a film about concussions in sports set to hit theaters on Christmas Day. But while most people talk about the athletes who suffer from concussions, NHL referees remain hidden victims.
Paul Stewart is a decade removed from a 1,000-game NHL officiating career and he suffers from symptoms that sound all too familiar: headaches, memory problems, mood swings. He told The Guardian he had a brain tumor a few years ago and doctors wondered whether there could be a correlation between the tumor and numerous concussions.
Stewart, like many NHL players, has already decided to donate his brain to Boston University's Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy research center. He finally broke the code of silence among referees against complaining about injury. Back in the day, anyone who spoke up was seen as weak. Stewart told The Guardian that his own father advised him against wearing a helmet on the ice because he'd never manage to keep a job that way.
Times have changed. All officials now wear helmets on the ice. But it is impossible to know how many, like Stewart, suffered in silence over the years. Even more concerning is the possibility that the silence continues to this day, a silence that remains unquestioned by a public who now notices concussions in players but seemingly forgot about the game's officials.
Stewart is quiet no more. Perhaps his peers will start to speak up too.
(h/t The Guardian)
