Written by Sam Werner and Elizabeth Bloom at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As Penguins coach Mike Sullivan discussed Sidney Crosby’s latest concussion diagnosis after practice Monday, his two one-word answers might have best summed up Crosby’s current situation.
Is there hope this could be a relatively short recovery? “Yes.”
Is there a timetable for Crosby’s return to the ice? “No.”
Given the fickle nature of head injuries, it is impossible to discern how long Crosby’s most recent concussion, announced by the team Monday, will keep him off the ice.
This is at least the third concussion for Crosby, 29, who had a series of head and neck injuries that sidetracked his stellar career from 2011 to 2012. He missed 107 games over the course of two seasons, and later admitted that he questioned whether he would ever play professional hockey again.
Now, those questions return. Crosby returned from the World Cup of Hockey to practice with the Penguins on Oct. 4, and practiced with the team twice last week. Sullivan said the injury occurred during the second session, on Friday, although he did not reveal the specifics of how it happened.
Crosby was supposed to play in the final preseason game Saturday against Columbus but complained he didn’t feel well when he arrived at PPG Paints Arena, and was scratched from the lineup. He appeared at the team’s Fan Fest on Sunday but missed practice Monday to have concussion testing, which confirmed the diagnosis.
“Our medical staff follows strict guidelines, and there’s a certain protocol and that’s how our team operates,” Sullivan said. “We always have our players’ best interests [in mind] and health is the priority. Regardless of who the player is, that’s how we feel and we’ve always felt that way, so this one will be no different.”
One concern for people with a history of concussions is that their brains become more susceptible to subsequent trauma, and athletes can get concussions from smaller impacts, said Anthony G. Alessi, director of the NeuroSport program at the University of Connecticut.
When counseling athletes who have had multiple concussions, Dr. Alessi asks them about how their symptoms compared with prior instances, and what level of force was involved.
“The thing you want to watch for in an athlete like Sid Crosby is does it take increasingly less biomechanical force to get a concussion?” said Dr. Alessi, who has not evaluated Crosby. “What happens is the threshold just starts going downward.”
Despite the large amount of money that has been spent on research in the years since Crosby’s previous issues, concussion diagnosis and treatment still have a long way to go.
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