The Contrarian discusses the problem of NHL injuries and disclosures. 

Every season starts out with lots of optimism but it doesn't take very long before injuries occur. If the injury is to a player we have on our fantasy teams or on our draft lists we search for more details about the nature of the injury. People like our own Aaron Brouwer compile the info on hand to help us and we are all thankful for his

efforts.

In his latest update, “The IR Report: Week Two”, a Dobber member comments about getting even more information out of the league.

"But, I believe that the NFL cracked down on teams being vague with injury descriptions, in the recent past. They have to list all injured players, they have to be specific about the type of injury, and I even think the NFL watches for anyone exaggerating or minimizing severity. And I believe the motivating factor for the ‘crack down’ was fantasy football. Millions of people play it and the NFL wanted to keep them happy.

How long before the NHL steps up and does something similar? Eric Staal suffered some sort of injury to some part of his ‘upper body’ and is out for an indefinite period of time. That’s just ridiculous. I can maybe see loosening the rules in the playoffs, but in the regular season, I want access to the damn x-rays." wrote Corstyles.

I know that there are many others out there with similar thoughts.

In 2010 Eric Macramalla wrote on Offside Sports Law, “NHL’s Failure to Disclose Injuries Bad”, and he asked people to sign a petition for access to injury details. Pierre LeBrun said something similar in 2008, "Want full disclosure on NHL injuries? Vote for the LeBrun Amendment".

Macramalla claims "This is a problem for the NHL. By maintaining a veil over player injuries, in part, undermines the NHL's attempt to grab a larger market share as it prevents fans from engaging the league at a higher level. Fans don't know what's going on with their favourite players. As well fantasy players don't have the necessary information they need to manage their teams effectively. And we all know how critical fantasy leagues are to generating interest in a league. Of course we can't forget that gambling on games also generates interest in a league, and without good information, gamblers may shy away from hockey."

He also uses the technology argument, "In an information age, this just doesn't cut it. Accurate up-to-date information should be a given. It's not and that's a problem."

The gambling aspect of the argument is explained by LeBrun, "The NHL’s injury policy is the extreme of the most popular sports league in North America — the NFL. The NFL promotes full disclosure of injuries, releases weekly reports and enforces fines on teams who falsify those reports" and adds comments from then Toronto Maple Leaf coach Ron Wilson “Hey, why do they publish the injuries in football? You know why — Las Vegas. It’s all about betting. And hockey isn’t that kind of a sport."

LeBrun also explains the history of injury disclosure in the league and makes a case for his amendment, "Because there is proof of targeting, we can buy the players’ safety issue. But our argument would be that the policy should be amended so full disclosure still exists from mid-September (the start of training camps) through March 1 (the beginning of the stretch run). From then through the playoffs, teams can hide injury details all they want."

From the perspective of a fantasy league participant or plain gambler this all makes sense, doesn't it?

What about the view of a fan of a team? How about the perspective of the team and then what about the player themselves?