Dangerous sports

[Davetello]

First of all, please don't think that the fact I have been creating a lot of topics - possibly too many - is lost on me.

I'm asking this because, unbeknownst to many who know me, I have a developing interest in two of your major North American sports. I couldn't care less about American football or baseball (although I recognise the skill involved, particularly in the latter), but I do have a soft spot for ice hockey and basketball. I couldn't name a single active ice hockey player, and only a few basketball players. But the sports do fascinate me. Perhaps it's because they're sort of similar to small sided games of soccer - basketball is like 5 a side soccer, only with hands, and ice hockey is like five a side soccer on, well, ice. I would like to start following these sports more if I could find the time to do so, but that's not strictly what this question is about.

I'm asking which sports you consider the most dangerous? We can exclude the obvious such as F1, wrestling, motorsport etc, and keep to team sports. Many would say American football is the most dangerous, but I would have to go with ice hockey. Those guys are hard as nails. They're huge guys skating at breakneck speed over cold, hard ice and bumping into boards and one another, being smacked in the head by pucks. Frankly, it makes me feel like an absolute pussy for forgetting to wear shin guards at soccer and grimacing when I take a kick there. And of course there's no shortage of quality either.

There is however one thing which is rare in ice hockey, but is without doubt the biggest danger in the sport and possibly the biggest danger in any sport...and that's the prospect of having your throat cut by another participant's skate. I've read into this before, and refreshed my memory recently. Clint Malurchuk in 1989 and Richard Zednik in 2008 had their cartoid arteries severed. Thankfully both men survived and are alive and well. But Malurchuk's accident is one of the most uncomfortable things I have ever watched. Seeing the blood spurting out of his neck is horrendous. He thought he was going to die and he wanted off the ice so his mother wouldn't see him die on television. His life was saved by a medic who had been in Vietnam, and if he'd been goalkeeping (sorry, goaltending, hehehe) at the other end of the rink he probably wouldn't have made it to the medical room in time. If not for the intervention of the medic, Malurchuk would have bled out in less than two minutes. Zednik's accident had a great effect on Malurchuk. It brought up nightmares from the past and led to suicide attempts. Thankfully he seems to be okay now, though.

Of course, head injuries are also common in hockey. Bill Masterton remains the only man ever to die as a result of an NHL hockey collision, and his story is heartbreaking. His death was a big influence on helmets becoming compulsory. However, there are claims that Masterton had a pre-existing blood clot and that heavily contributed to his death in 1968.

In soccer, nobody really dies as a result of collisions. It can happen, of course, and has. However, there's nothing like as terrifying as the prospect of having a throat cut by a sharp skate blade. What is quite prominent in European football is players collapsing and either dying or narrowly escaping death (Miklos Feher, Marc Viven Foe, Antonio Puerta, Dani Jarque, Fabrice Muamba who survived but was forced to retire etc). Whether this is because of the physical demands of the sport is unclear, but a worrying number of footballers do seem to have heart defects.

So my overall questions are: which sports do you think are the most dangerous, and why? And do you think that neck guards should be compulsory in hockey? I wouldn't have the balls to play hockey without one.