https://www.tsn.ca/video/nhl-under-oath-mario-lemieux-deposition~1401756
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When the National Hockey League announced in late 2011 that Hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine would star in a weekly documentary called Making of a Royal about his coaching of a Midget rep hockey team, the league promised an "unprecedented" series with behind-the-scenes footage.
The 24-part series about the Long Island, N.Y., Royals was shown on the NHL Network, NHL.com, and the NHL's YouTube channel.
Episode nine covered the issue of brain injuries in hockey, a particularly noteworthy subject because LaFontaine's 15-year NHL career ended due to post-concussion symptoms.
Six days before that five-minute Making of a Royal episode was posted on YouTube on Dec. 16, 2011, NHL vice-president of media relations Frank Brown ordered NHL video producer Ryan Bader to remove a section of LaFontaine's comments about concussions.
"Once you get a concussion you are four to six times more likely to get another one – and it's probably exponential from there," LaFontaine said in a clip that was dropped from the show.
It wasn't the only clip Brown asked to have removed.
"The closing quote from Pat LaFontaine about 'A lot less mothers and fathers cringing, wondering when's the next ambulance going out…' MUST go," Brown wrote in a Dec. 10, 2011, email to Bader.
Copies of Brown's emails were included in a 256-page transcript of NHL public relations executive Gary Meagher's Oct. 7, 2015, deposition in Toronto.
Meagher's deposition was among more than 30 held in connection with the NHL concussion lawsuit, filed in a U.S. federal court in Minnesota in 2013.
Brown wasn't deposed in connection with the NHL concussion lawsuit and Meagher said he didn't know why his colleague demanded changes to the video.
"Why would Frank Brown from your communications group want that to be deleted from a video that was being produced by the NHL?" plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Dearman asked.
"I don't know the answer to that," Meagher said.
Former NHLer Brendan Shanahan, then director of player safety for the league, also appeared in episode nine of Making of a Royal.
Brown also asked for an edit of Shanahan's interview clips.
At one point, Shanahan said, "There's a tremendous amount of peer pressure if you've got a banged up shoulder or a banged up knee, it's sort of like, 'Look, your ankle will heal over the summer, get through this, for us.' But I think when there's a head injury, the brotherhood wants to come together and protect the guy with that head injury."
Brown ordered Bader to cut the rest of Shanahan's quote where he said, "This might not end over the summer … it might affect him for the rest of his life … might end his career."
Brown wrote, "THE FOLLOWING MUST BE DELETED" about another clip of the video that showed Shanahan on the ice in an NHL game "looking up/dazed."
All professional sports leagues and companies, of course, are in the business of trying to shape a favourable opinion in the public eye. And yet with a high-profile concussion lawsuit being argued in a U.S. federal court, that is especially so for the NHL, whose executives paid close attention to the LaFontaine series to remove any commentary that might be considered negative or controversial.
"It's our job as communications people to promote our league, to promote our game," Meagher testified during his deposition in Toronto.
The depositions show that the league's efforts to gauge and help shape public and media opinion about issues such as fighting, head hits and violence in hockey were ongoing long before the concussion lawsuit was filed.
Meagher testified that monitoring of the media's coverage of the NHL is handled by a 15-person communications staff working in offices in Toronto and in New York.
During meetings with NHL team owners and general managers, the NHL's public relations department has made presentations about public attitudes regarding violence in the sport.
During one such meeting in March 2010 with NHL general managers, public relations staffers shared that an independent poll found 80 per cent of Canadian fans believe hits to the head in pro hockey were "getting out of hand."
League executives have similarly been tuned in to how teams promote and market fighting in games and how fans have responded to violence in hockey.
According to a PowerPoint presentation made Meagher during a March 9, 2009, general managers' meeting, "There is apparent marketing and or additional multimedia in more than 5 per cent of the fights in our [NHL] game. Examples In-Arena: Boxing bells are rung before the first punch is thrown. Drum/cymbals sound every time the home player lands a punch. Typical songs – Bloody Sunday (U2), We Salute You (AC/DC), Raise a Little Hell (Trooper), Eye of the Tiger (Survivor), Fight for Your Right (Beastie Boys)."
"Fights generate crowd noise and enthusiasm – additional multimedia in arena including replay prolongs that spike."
According to NHL statistics, there were 734 fights during the 2008-09 NHL season. Five per cent of those would represent about 36 fights.
On Oct. 29, 2011, about two months after Wade Belak died, making him the third NHL player in three months to have died prematurely, Bernadette Mansur, then an executive in the NHL's PR department, sent an email to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Meagher and Brown. The email was titled "NHL Community Charitable Associations and messaging."
"Because of the recent player suicides and deaths we are now considered the poster child for mental illness," Mansur wrote.
Mansur's complete email remains sealed by a court order.
Meagher's deposition also highlighted the NHL's decisions about what information to disclose to the media and public and what the league tries to avoid sharing publicly.
In February 2011, Willem Meeuwisse, an NHL medical consultant, reviewed an internal NHL spreadsheet that showed a number of NHL players had returned to the same games in which they had suffered concussions.
"WOW," Meeuwisse wrote in a Feb. 18 email to Meagher, NHL senior vice-president of hockey operations Kris King, and NHL lawyer Julie Grand. "That is a completely different picture than we get from the injury data."
Four days later, King responded.
"I think we should keep this new spread sheet very tight to this group going forward," King wrote in his Feb. 22, 2011, email. "Does anyone disagree? This information in the wrong hands would not be a good thing in my opinion. Looking for comments or advice."
"Totally agree re your point below," Grand responded.
"Yes, makes sense," Meeuwisse added.
In another email about the issue, Meeuwisse wrote Meagher, "This is a pretty big deal from a clinical perspective. We think players who continue to play after the hit get a worse injury …"
Meagher was asked about that exchange during his deposition.
"Do you know why Kris is telling you we should keep this spreadsheet very tight?" plaintiff lawyer Mark Dearman asked.
"I do not," Meagher answered.
"… Do you get a lot of emails where somebody like Kris King or somebody else at the NHL is saying, if this gets into the wrong hands it wouldn't be a good thing. Do you agree or disagree?" Dearman asked.
"I don't know how many of those emails I might have received," Meagher said.
The NHL's public relations and marketing departments have a mandate to monitor and shape the public image of the league, and there is evidence that the league may, in some instances, bow to that public opinion.
In 2005 the NHL introduced new instigator rules for players who fight and who are repeat aggressors. For instance, a player who receives his third instigator penalty in one season is automatically suspended for two games.
Two years later, Burke, then the general manager of the Anaheim Ducks, wanted to increase the number of instigator penalties a player could receive before being suspended.
His suggestion was refused and he blamed that failure on the media, according to emails discussed with Burke during his Aug. 19, 2015, deposition in New York.
"The media have goaded the NHL into this," Burke wrote in an Oct. 24, 2007, email to Colin Campbell. "They will continue to goad you to raise the bar again. Then they will [expletive] kill us when we have totally removed hitting from the game and our buildings are half full and our ratings are even worse than they are now, if that's even possible."
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https://www.tsn.ca/video/nhl-under-oath-brendan-shanahan-deposition~1401722
Former New Jersey Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello testified he was blindsided by the news that onetime Devils enforcer Mike Peluso, who has been diagnosed with dementia, blamed the Devils for not protecting him better when he was an NHL player.
During a Jan. 22, 2016, deposition in Toronto, Lamoriello said that his reaction was "complete surprise and disappointment" after reading a May 1, 2015, article in the Bergen, N.J., Record newspaper that quoted Peluso saying he held the Devils responsible for his health problems.
Peluso has said in both a civil lawsuit and in a workers' compensation case that he suffered a string of seizures while playing in the NHL, that the Devils and other teams allowed him to keep playing and fighting even after he began suffering seizures and that they fraudulently hid medical files that showed Peluso had brain damage.
"Michael, I think, was in New Jersey and knew me well enough to – what my concern was and is and continues to be for players," Lamoriello testified. "I'm a players' manager."
Lamoriello's testimony is among 31 depositions obtained by TSN in connection with the NHL concussion lawsuit and his comments are revealing on several fronts.
Throughout his Hall of Fame NHL career, which began in 1987 when he was hired as GM by the Devils, Lamoriello has run what Sports Illustrated called in 1999, "the tightest ship in the hockey business," a team whose basic tenets were "patience, loyalty, secrecy."
That mantra of secrecy adds to the spectacle of the three-time Stanley Cup-winning Lamoriello's 364-page deposition. Lamoriello has declined to comment publicly on Peluso's allegations and the deposition includes his first known remarks about his former player's charges.
Lamoriello was asked about Peluso's return to the Devils lineup in December 1993, days after suffering a concussion. Peluso's brain injury at the time was so bad, Devils massage therapist Bobby Huddleston said in a 2016 interview with CTV's W5, that a confused Peluso dressed, undressed and showered at least four times following a Dec. 18, 1993 game against the Quebec Nordiques. Peluso was hospitalized that night.
Peluso, then 28, had suffered a concussion after he hit his head on the ice during a fight against Nordiques enforcer Tony Twist. (Ten pages of Lamoriello's testimony after he is asked about the Peluso-Twist fight are redacted – hidden from public view.)
Peluso returned to the Devils' lineup days later and hit his head on the ice again, this time during a fight against Toronto's Ken Baumgartner on Dec. 23.
"Assuming that Mr. Peluso did get into a fight with Kenny Baumgartner four [sic] days after suffering a concussion, do you think that was safe for him to do so?" Stuart Davidson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, asked Lamoriello.
"I could not make that judgment," Lamoriello said. "First of all, fights in the National Hockey League are not boxing fights… 90 per cent of the fights in the National Hockey League, no one even lands a punch. Ninety per cent of the fights are almost wrestling matches."
Lamoriello also said that Peluso, whose NHL career spanned from 1989 to 1997, made the decision to play and to fight.
"…He was cleared to play," Lamoriello testified. "We would have never let him play unless he was cleared to play. He also is being asked, I'm sure, it's done constantly, 'Are you okay? Do you feel okay? Are you all right?' He made the decision to go in. Nobody forces you to go in. He makes the decision to play…and then he played that game. He got in a fight. He makes that decision."
Peluso's lawyer, Shawn Stuckey, said it was ridiculous for anyone to claim Peluso was making his own decisions about playing.
"Mike got a call from his coach who said that the Maple Leafs had guys like linebackers and he needed Mike to protect his teammates, and that's the reason Mike went back to play so soon," Stuckey said in a March 15 interview with TSN.
"The team pressured him to go back. When Mike got back to New Jersey from Quebec, his girlfriend had to drive him to the rink because he couldn't remember the way. He still had concussion symptoms. To say Mike or any other player in that situation makes a decision to go back on the ice after a concussion is unconscionable. Asking a concussed player if he's okay is like asking a drunk driver if they are okay to drive. It's remarkable that in 2016, Lamoriello is still willing to say something like, 'He said he was okay to play.' "
Lamoriello, who was named president of hockey operations of the New York Islanders on May 22, declined through a team spokesperson to comment on his testimony.
On Feb. 14, 1994, two months after his injury in Quebec, Peluso had a seizure and collapsed while working out on a treadmill at a Florida hotel.
Four days later, on Feb. 18, The New York Times reported that Lamoriello said Peluso's seizure was primarily due to dehydration and lack of nutrition. The Times also reported the Devils were worried Peluso's seizure could be related to his Dec. 18 concussion.
"Did you ever give any statements to the press about a seizure that Mr. Peluso suffered?" Davidson asked Lamoriello during the deposition.
"I also read something where – that said that I said something, but I didn't quote it," Lamoriello said. "I don't recall saying it… I wasn't quoted. Other people in there were quoted, so I don't recall saying it. … If I made a statement to The New York Times it would have been in quotes."
Following his Feb. 14 seizure, Peluso was examined by neurologist Marvin Ruderman, who sent a Feb. 21 report to Lamoriello to say, "I do not believe that the participation in playing hockey in itself poses an excessive risk for the development of further seizures unless he were to sustain head injuries."
After Dr. Ruderman's warning, Peluso went on to have another 99 fights in the NHL, 71 of them while he played for the Devils.
"…You would agree with me that Mr. Peluso continues to fight for the New Jersey Devils after this letter was sent?" Davidson asked Lamoriello during his deposition.
"Yes," Lamoriello said.
"By the way, fight for himself as well as the New Jersey Devils," Lamoriello added. "When you fight, you are protecting yourself sometimes. When you say fight, you're not fighting. You're fighting for your teammates, you're fighting for yourself. You're representing a team."
Lamoriello was asked during his deposition about fighting in the NHL. He said he supports it.
Lamoriello said Peluso was well liked as a Devils player and that he was among a group of "intimidating" players who had both size and strength. Fighting, Lamoriello said, was part of the "fabric" of players like Peluso and his Devils' linemate Randy McKay.
"…You never developed them," Lamoriello said. "That was part of them, their personality. And sometimes you never even knew if that's who they would be or who would do that."
"In the case of both of those players [Peluso and McKay], they came from college hockey. Neither one of them ever fought before they became pros. So you didn't know whether – so they weren't taught. It was part of their fabric. It was part of who they were."
Lamoriello was asked about the NCAA's move to outlaw fighting in hockey, one that he says has led to more cross-checking, more hitting from behind, and more spinal injuries.
"All you have to do today is go into a college locker room and walk around the room and look at every face shield, full face shield that they have, and you look at all the stick marks," Lamoriello said. "Because when there is no fear, there's no respect. When you have no respect, you have no fear of what how – you are going to do to someone and how you're going to hurt them."
Lamoriello was also asked whether he knows if his NHL coaches have ever told their players to fight. He said he meets regularly with his players and has never had a player tell him that they've been ordered to fight.
While Peluso says he is permanently disabled and has suffered at least 10 grand mal seizures because of injuries he suffered in the NHL, the Devils' insurance company, Chubb Group of Insurance Co., alleges that Peluso's seizures have been caused by "a lack of sleep, partying, dehydration, binge drinking, and failure to take medication…"
Lamoriello said that he had heard Peluso was working as a hockey scout when he learned of Peluso's medical problems through the Bergen Record newspaper story.
"I felt very bad for Michael, and I even asked a couple of our players if there was anything they thought I could or should do," Lamoriello testified.
"Did you do anything in response to the article to see if any assistance could be given to Mr. Peluso?" Davidson asked.
"No. I – I stayed away from it," Lamoriello answered.
"And why is that?" Davidson asked.
"Because I felt that – I saw there was a suit involved…I felt that my best – the right thing was I should not be involved in any comments or get involved with making it appear that I'm trying to do something to – you know, I have nothing to hide," Lamoriello said.
In a Nov. 15, 2016, decision obtained by TSN, a California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board commissioner ruled the Devils "wrongfully withheld" two documents that Peluso's legal team has said are crucial to his case.
One document that was not properly produced was a Dec. 18, 1993, medical report confirming Peluso did suffer a concussion in his fight with Twist. The second document was Dr. Ruderman's Feb. 21, 1994, neurology report warning the Devils that Peluso could have more seizures if he suffered more head trauma.
In a May 10, 2018, court filing in his civil lawsuit against the Devils, Peluso's lawyer alleged that he obtained 43 documents on Sept. 1, 2017, that were not properly produced during the discovery period in his six-year-old workers' compensation case.
The documents obtained in September, Stuckey wrote in the filing, "did not simply conceal the risk of a seizure disorder, but in fact, concealed an injury that Mr. Peluso was actually already experiencing and would only continue to worsen with every additional head injury."
Among the documents Stuckey said he obtained in September 2017 were diagnostics that included a electroencephalogram, or EEG – which uses sensors attached to the head and hooked by wires to a computer to measure brain waves – showing Peluso had suffered temporal lobe damage directly after his February 1994 seizure.
"Defendants should have immediately forced Mr. Peluso to retire and should have taken all efforts to prevent him from playing again," Stuckey wrote.
The franchise is under different ownership since Peluso first filed his workers' compensation claim six years ago. In August 2017, the defendants – the Devils, St. Louis Blues, Calgary Flames, Ottawa Senators and their insurers – offered Peluso $325,000 (U.S.) to settle that case.
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Video: https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/nhl-under-oath-part-2~1404013
A medical consultant to the National Hockey League Players' Association has testified under oath that a top NHL lawyer watered down a warning to players about the long-term dangers of repeated head trauma on a poster displayed in every NHL team dressing room.
The union ultimately went along with the NHL's request in order to move along the process of getting a poster done, according to Dr. John Rizos' Aug. 12, 2016 testimony in the landmark concussion lawsuit against the league.
The behind-the-scenes glimpse into the evolution of the NHL's head injury warning poster is found among the 31 NHL concussion case court depositions from 2015 and 2016 obtained by TSN.
After several years of discussion, the league and union agreed in September 2013 to produce and display a blue and red poster about concussions, advising players to recognize the signs of head injuries, report their symptoms, and to make sure they recover completely before returning to play.
The posters – written in English and the approximate size of a magazine cover – are still displayed in locker rooms throughout the league, NHLPA spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon confirmed.
"Each club was instructed to place the concussion education poster in the NHL club's home, practice and visiting club's dressing rooms," Weatherdon wrote in an email to TSN.
The Montreal Canadiens posted the warning poster in both English and French.
NHL teams were also instructed to distribute translated versions "as appropriate" to the players, Weatherdon wrote, adding that the NHLPA has the posters in eight languages available on the union's secure website.
The NHL's in-locker room warning in 2013 came three years after the National Football League began distributing its own poster advising players of the potential consequences of concussions.
The NFL's poster asserts that repeated head trauma may lead to dementia and early onset of dementia. The poster also advises players that repeated concussions "can change your life and your family's life forever."
The NHL went in a different direction.
Posters hung in NHL locker rooms do not include the word "dementia." The NHL posters also don't include the warning issued by the NFL to its players that repeated head trauma could lead to permanent brain damage.
According to the testimonies of an NHL lawyer and a league medical consultant, as well as that of an NHLPA medical consultant, an NHL doctor worried about using too many words on the poster because of the growing percentage of foreign players in the NHL and so-called cultural differences.
The NHL/NHLPA Concussion Working Group first began discussing the prospect of a warning poster on Aug. 6, 2010 – about three months after the NFL released its bluntly worded version, according to a copy of meeting minute notes.
During a deposition in Toronto, Dr. Rizos was asked about the poster's evolution.
He testified that he initially used wording borrowed from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Under the heading, "What Should I Do If I Think I've Had A Concussion," an early draft of the poster read into the court record of Dr. Rizos' deposition included the warning that traumatic brain injuries "can cause a wide range of short or long-term changes affecting thinking, sensation, language or emotions. These changes may lead to problems with changes in memory and communication, personality, as well as depression and the early onset of dementia."
By the spring of 2012, the NHL had problems with the union's proposed poster.
NHL lawyer Julie Grand, who is a member of the NHL/NHLPA Concussion Working Group, wrote in an email to Dr. Rizos that she had discussed the draft version of the poster with league doctors Ruben Echemendia and Willem Meeuwisse and that she had concerns about including the CDC's warning.
Grand, who was deposed in connection with the concussion lawsuit but not asked specifically about the poster's creation, wanted to take out the word dementia according to Dr. Rizos.
In a May 2012 email to Dr. Rizos, Grand wrote she had "a few concerns with the way it is now written."
She wrote, "I think the written statement seems alarmist and seems to suggest that the consequences listed could result from having one concussion."
Dr. Rizos agreed to Grand's suggested changes.
"So, Ms. Grand deletes 'early onset of dementia' as a possibility, right?" plaintiff lawyer Michael Cashman asked.
"It seems that that's correct," Dr. Rizos said.
"That is watering it down, isn't it?" Cashman responded.
"I would with this in view, I would say this is watering it down," Dr. Rizos said.
Dr. Rizos later testified about why the NHLPA agreed to the NHL's request.
"What I see and my initial impressions are that we came up with compromises with language that was acceptable to all parties in order to move the process along," Dr. Rizos said.
Dr. Meeuwisse explained in a July 15, 2016, deposition why the word dementia was eliminated from the NHL poster.
"The objective was to make the message simple and clear and define as to its scope," he said.
Dr. Echemendia was asked in a June 22, 2015, deposition why the NHL poster didn't include a warning about permanent brain damage.
"I do not know the specific reason for why it does not," he said.
Dr. Echemendia added, "…A part of the problem that we face in the NHL that the NFL does not face is a language issue, where half of our players speak a language other than English."
While the NFL settled its own concussion lawsuit and in March 2016 conceded that a link exists between head hits and long-term brain disease, the NHL is fighting a proposed class-action lawsuit from its players and denying a link has been established between head hits in hockey and long-term cognitive problems.
Dr. Frank Conidi, chief of the Florida Center for Headache and Sports Neurology and the former team neurologist for the Florida Panthers, said in an interview with TSN that he believes the warning poster was watered down because the NHL sensed a lawsuit by former players would be filed.
"The editing of the poster is insulting," Dr. Conidi said. "The thing that comes to my mind is: That's the best you can think of? I think I would have said, 'I don't know' before I said, 'My players don't speak English.' These players get to and from NHL rinks okay and read English street signs and live in North America. There are a number of very intelligent hockey players and I think many would be offended that these guys are basically saying the players aren't smart enough to read the poster."
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On the morning of Sept. 10, 2015, Jeremy Jacobs walked into a lawyer's office in downtown Buffalo, prepared to be grilled for some seven hours about his ownership of the Boston Bruins.
On at least two separate occasions in the days before his deposition, he had met with National Hockey League lawyers to prepare for questions about the league's concussion lawsuit, according to a 350-page transcript of his deposition, one of 31 deposition records obtained by TSN.
Shortly before a lunch break, a lawyer for the group of ex-NHLers suing the league asked Jacobs a direct question: Have you ever heard of the neurodegenerative disease known as CTE?
"No," Jacobs answered.
A video camera recorded the exchange as Jacobs said he couldn't recall reading about CTE or hearing it being discussed at any NHL meetings.
Jacobs was later asked whether he was aware CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, had been found in the brains of former professional football players.
"I don't know," he said.
"How about former professional hockey players?" a lawyer asked him.
"I don't think so. I don't know," Jacobs answered.
It was a surprising response from the NHL Board of Governors chairman because, at the time of his deposition, CTE had been discovered posthumously in the brains of four former NHL players: Reggie Fleming, Rick Martin, Bob Probert and Steve Montador.
Moreover, more than three years before Jacobs sat down for questioning, the NFL made front-page news around the country when it agreed to pay $765 million to settle its own concussion lawsuit, a legal battle that began in 2011 where CTE was also front and centre.
Jacobs, who bought the Bruins in 1975 and is now 78, was among five NHL owners who testified under oath about the league's approach to repeated head trauma.
Their depositions offer a glimpse into how hands-off they say they are when it comes to issues such as player health and safety, how they collectively oppose a prohibition on fighting and head hits, and how, even with the threat of a massive court judgment in the case, they say they know next to nothing about long-term neurological disorders such as CTE.
"If we take these owners at their word, and they really don't know what CTE is, it just makes the owners look like dilettantes," said Jodi Balsam, a former NFL league lawyer who now teaches at Brooklyn Law School in New York. "These teams are businesses that earn and lose tens of millions of dollars and the idea that they wouldn't keep themselves up to date on the science and medical developments that affect their most important assets is remarkable to me."
Balsam said in an interview with TSN that the NHL has likely spent more than $50 million on legal fees so far for the case. She said it would be surprising and unusual for the NHL's legal department to not brief team owners on what CTE is and how it might affect the NHL.
The transcripts obtained by TSN are the sworn testimony of NHL team owners such as Jacobs, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, other league officials, team trainers and doctors and medical consultants to the NHL and NHLPA, as well as former NHL players such as Brendan Shanahan, Colin Campbell and Kris King who later worked for the league and/or its teams.
The depositions are redacted, meaning some of the most sensitive sections of testimony are still secret, blacked out unless a judge in the case rules that it's in the public interest they be made public. The depositions of former players suing the NHL are completely redacted.
In a five-part series this week, TSN will report details of the depositions, documents that reveal:
- As of July 2016, the NHL had fined the Montreal Canadiens, the Calgary Flames and a third unidentified team for breaching the league's concussion protocol. The New Jersey Devils, whom NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a deposition were not fined, failed to do mandatory preseason baseline neurological tests in 2007 and only did so after the season because of pressure from the league.
- Brendan Shanahan, then the director of the NHL's player safety department, testified July 22, 2015, that some NHL enforcers reached out to him to say they were afraid for their lives following Wade Belak's death in 2011. Shanahan testified he had since forgotten those players' names.
- In an August 2015 deposition, Nashville Predators co-owner Thomas Cigarran testified that there doesn't need to be a medical study of NHL retirees "from a legal or moral standpoint" although he said "it might be smart business..."
- Lou Lamoriello, then the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, testified in a Jan. 22, 2016, deposition that the Leafs have used a team employee, director of sports science and performance Jeremy Bettle, as an in-arena concussion spotter. (The NHL has not disclosed the names before now of any spotters and the NHLPA told TSN that it isn't the union's place to disclose their identities.)
- When asked if he could think of any reasons why the NHL should not study the mental health of its retirees, then New York Rangers general manager Glen Sather testified, "Yeah, I could probably think of about two or three million." Sather went on to say such a study would be expensive.
- Sather testified that neither the Rangers, nor the Edmonton Oilers under his leadership, tracked concussions suffered by players in their minor league systems because "generally the players are only there for a year or two." He was unaware if minor-league affiliates had to comply with concussion protocols.
- Daly testified he never asked former NHL Alumni Association president Mark Napier to forward emails – which Napier did – revealing how some former players were trying to recruit others to join the NHL concussion lawsuit.
In August 2014, Napier sent Daly an email with an attached letter from one-time NHL defenceman Brad Maxwell, who is among the plaintiffs in the NHL concussion lawsuit. Maxwell's letter had been distributed to Buffalo Sabres alumni and described a meeting where lawyers and former players discussed the litigation.
- NHL senior vice-president of hockey operations Mike Murphy wrote in an Oct. 6, 2007, email to director of hockey operations Colin Campbell that "We need to make sure every elbow to the head is not a major penalty. Five-minute majors attract attention. Two-minute minors go away quickly, especially with the media."
The NHL has been accused of collective willful blindness in the five-year-old concussion lawsuit that has polarized the hockey industry.
Commissioners, team owners and league executives have allegedly snubbed science, plaintiffs lawyers say, ignoring studies published since at least the 1920s that have warned about the dangers of repeated concussions.
Jacobs wasn't the only NHL team owner who testified he was in the dark about CTE.
In a deposition on Sept. 2, 2015, four months after Montador became the fourth former NHL player diagnosed with CTE, Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis testified he had heard of the disease but said that "it's in the news around football."
He said that his knowledge of the disease was limited to what he had read in Sports Illustrated or perhaps The Wall Street Journal, and that he was aware that former NHL player Derek Boogaard had been posthumously diagnosed with CTE.
Two weeks after Jacobs' deposition, Los Angeles Kings owner Phil Anschutz was asked in a Sept. 29, 2015, deposition about his knowledge of the disease.
Anschutz said he wasn't aware of the term chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. The billionaire entrepreneur said he couldn't recall hearing it being discussed at any NHL meetings.
After Anschutz testified that he had never heard the term Lou Gehrig's disease, he was asked whether dementia and Alzheimer's are serious medical conditions.
"They appear to be," he said.
Mark Conrad, director of the sports business concentration at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University in New York, said he believes NHL owners have avoided learning anything about CTE and other neurocognitive diseases as a legal strategy.
"Maybe it was like the tobacco industry's tactics in the 1940s and 50s," Conrad said. "Avoid knowing about any link between head hits and fighting and brain problems because it helps to sell tickets. These owners are some pretty bright guys and you don't have to be a neurological resident to have heard about CTE in 2015."
In his Dec. 17, 2015, deposition in Pittsburgh, Penguins owner Mario Lemieux was never asked directly if he knew what CTE is. But he was asked about his relationship with Sidney Crosby, the Penguins superstar who lived with Lemieux for eight years.
Crosby has had multiple concussions, throwing his future in the sport into question, and yet Lemieux, who once called the NHL "a garage league," said he wouldn't agree with a move to remove all hits to the head from the game.
"I don't think all hits to the head should be penalized or suspended," Lemieux said.
The former Penguins star said he wouldn't support supplemental discipline for all head hits.
"I don't think it would be a good rule," Lemieux said. "I don't think you have to punish every hit to the head. I mean, you have a guy like [Bruins captain Zdeno] Chara who is six-nine and, you know, you have a five-nine or five-ten player, I mean, it's going to happen where somebody might get hit in the head."
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