New All-Star challenge to test players' abilities to hide concussion symptoms
/The Elbow staff
NEW YORK, NY – The NHL today unveiled the newest skills-based competition that will feature at this weekend's All-Star game.
The Concussion Challenge will give each competitor five minutes to effectively mask concussion symptoms following a devastating head hit to the head from one of two defencemen.
"The timer will start as the player carries the puck over the red line with their head down, before being hit by their choice of Radko Gudas or Mark Borowiecki," league spokesman Louis Burdett said today.
"While semi-conscious and barely able to stand on their own after the hit, they will be helped to centre ice where a doctor will test their motor skills and ask them several basic general knowledge questions."
If the player is able to hide his concussion symptoms for five minutes, he will go through to the next round. Each team will have five players participate.
Due to NHL players' impressive ability to hide concussion symptoms from doctors, the difficulty of questioning will be considerably higher than those asked during mandatory testing in regular season games.
League officials are hoping for an impressive show of skill.
"Our players have been practicing this for their entire careers, so we're hoping that the fans are treated to a really impressive display."
Sidney Crosby is so heavily favourited to win the competition, that the NHL has already denied a request from rival teams to handicap his chances.
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