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CTE Rates Rise Year-by-Year in Pro Hockey Players

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Dec 5, 2024.

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Dec. 5, 2024. Hockey players’ chances of developing concussion-related brain injury increase with every year they spend on the ice, a new study finds.

The odds of having chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) increase among hockey players 34% for each year played, researchers reported Dec. 4 in JAMA Network Open.

Results show 18 out of 19 National Hockey League players had CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated concussions, researchers found.

However, CTE wasn’t found in a single hockey player who spent fewer than six years competing, researchers report.

“Ice hockey players with longer careers not only were more likely to have CTE, but they also had more severe disease,” said researcher Dr. Jesse Mez, co-director of clinical research at the Boston University CTE Center.

“We hope this data will help inspire changes to make the game safer as well as help former ice hockey players impacted by CTE get the care they need,” Mez added in a university news release.

These results make ice hockey the third major sport, after American football and rugby, to show a dose-response relationship between years of play and the risk of developing CTE, the researchers noted.

For the study, they studied the donated brains of 77 deceased male ice hockey players. They also tracked each player’s career, to see how their amateur or professional play might have affected their brain health.

They found that 96% (27 of 28) pro hockey players had CTE brain damage.

By comparison, only 46% of college and semi-pro players (13 of 28) had CTE, and just 10% of youth and high school players (2 of 21).

Interestingly, they found that enforcers did not have a statistically significant higher risk of CTE than other players after accounting for years of play, even though enforcers are meant to engage in more physical and violent play during hockey games.

“Enforcers have dominated the CTE conversation, but our findings provide the most evidence for the cumulative amount of play as the predominant risk factor for CTE,” Mez said.

“The takeaway here is that non-enforcers are getting CTE as well. Ice hockey players skate quickly, and checking leads to impacts with other players, the ice, boards and glass,” Mez added. “We think years of play is a proxy for these impacts that are harder to measure directly, but are likely what are leading to the disease.”

Sources

  • Boston University, news release, Dec. 4, 2024

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted December 2024

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