Former Detroit Red Wings captain Reed Larson wrote an op-ed in the Detroit News last year, claiming the NHL was “more than willing to encourage” playing with a head injury. The NHL wasn’t impressed.
Rick Westhead of TSN.ca reports unsealed court documents showed the league referred to players like Larson as “mere puppets” who “certainly would not have had the mental faculties to write lucid and sophisticated op-eds for publications.”
The league requested documents from a judge on former players communications with a relations firm.
“The NHL asked a judge for help obtaining correspondence between those former players and CLS Strategies, a Washington-based public relations firm that has given communications advice to the lawyers who represent a group of more than 100 former NHL players suing the league.”
The request was denied. The presiding judge in the case determined the plaintiffs, Larson, Bernie Nicholls and David Christian, had their own words used in pieces written about their concussions.
The lawsuit is still ongoing. It’s incredibly crass for the league to think players were serving as “puppets.” Whether the NHL wants to believe it or not, former players have had a difficult time dealing with post-career brain injuries. Claiming they’re acting on behalf of someone else, yet don’t have the mental faculties to write sophisticated op-eds is somewhat contradicting. The judge appeared to think the same and denied the league’s request for more information.
