A recently unsealed 2011 email exchange between NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and other executives shows evidence the league has internally acknowledged a links between fighting in hockey and concussions, depression and “personal tragedies.”
The emails, deemed public information by a federal judge in Minnesota, are part of a lawsuit between the NHL and former players accusing the league of improperly communicating the dangers of repeated head injuries.
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On Sept. 3, 2011, Bettman sent an email to deputy commissioner Bill Daly and former discipline head Brendan Shanahan in the wake of the sequential deaths of three NHL enforcers — Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak — in a span of four months.