The Ottawa 67’s are testing Impakt Protective’s Shockbox.
n Ottawa entrepreneur is hoping minor hockey teams will get on board with a new technology that can help identify and prevent head injuries.
The Shockbox is a small device installed on the top of players’ helmets that measures the force of a hit to the head and instantly transmits the data to a smartphone for coaches, trainers, or parents to see.
The Ottawa 67’s have started testing the sensors in practice, while the Carleton University Ravens and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees are using them in regular-game play.
But Danny Crossman, the CEO of Ottawa-based Impakt Protective, says the device will be most useful for minor hockey teams, which don’t have doctors on hand to identify a potential concussion.
“The only reason we’re interested in getting the 67’s and NHL teams is it’s a higher-profile adopter that the rest of the minor leagues can look at and say, ‘Hey, if they can use it then we can use it too,’ ” says Crossman.
“With the minor league teams, most of the trainers have a (level one certificate) through hockey Canada and concussions are one small part of that training.”
The sensor activates when a player sustains a blow to the head with the force of at least 65 G-force of acceleration, with most hockey hits measuring below 70 G and concussions occurring at around 90 G. For comparison, a shuttle launches at 3 G while a car crash at 64 km/h measures 35 G.
A notice is then sent to a smartphone connected by Bluetooth with information on the force of the hit and the direction of the force. The information allows the trainer to evaluate the player and decide whether he can continue playing or if he should be removed from the game.
The Ottawa 67’s are the OHL’s first team to try the Shockbox and Ottawa 67’s trainer Neil Hoch says the device will not only help identify dangerous hits but can provide information about concussions at all levels of hockey.
“It’s also a dual thing where we can start putting numbers to symptoms and that’ll give us a good collection of data to say ‘With these impacts we’ve seen X amount of symptoms,’ and then it can go back to other leagues, hopefully the NHL,” he says.
Crossman, a former bomb disposal officer with the British Army, says the idea came from putting sensors on missiles to detect the temperature, vibration, and impact of missile strikes. Ten years later in Ottawa, Crossman looked for a way to put data-loggers in the helmets of soldiers.
“We figured out how that would work and we showed a prototype to the U.S. Navy and the Navy showed it to the Marines and the Marines showed it to the Army and before you know it the project was bought five years ago,” he says.
In 2010, Crossman started Impakt Protective, with hopes of changing the way teams deal with head injuries. He says part of the issue with concussions is a failure to start the concussion protocol, which includes identifying the risk of a concussion and removing the player from the game.
This was evident with Pittsburgh Penguins’ star Sidney Crosby’s injury last season when Crosby suffered a serious blow to the head but returned the next game before being sidelined for the next 10 months with a severe concussion.
With the high number of concussions in the NHL, head injuries are a hot button issue in hockey, not only in the pros but in minor hockey as well, where it’s easier for head injuries to go undetected. But minor hockey teams aren’t so quick to adopt the new technology.
Michael Carter, head coach of the Ottawa Sting Minor Hockey Association’s Minor Bantam AA team, says he won’t comment on the product until it is endorsed by Hockey Canada.
Crossman says the product will be further-developed to become faster, smaller, and cheaper, and he hopes it will change the “suck it up and keep playing” culture surrounding hockey injuries.
“If it’s proven to be a device that picks up hits to the head that later turn out to be concussions and the player gets pulled off the ice to get checked, then yes, that’s going to be a good thing,” he says.
Crossman says that most importantly the device is affordable for parents and coaches of minor hockey teams at $199 per unit, with a two-for-one discount being offered for hockey teams for the rest of the year.
The Ottawa 67’s expect to start using the Shockbox during regular game play in about four months.