Hockey-related Emergency Department Visits After a Change in Minor Hockey Age Groups

Objective: To examine ice hockey injury rates presenting to emergency departments (EDs) in 2 separate cohorts of players before and after a policy change for age groups in minor hockey.

Design: : Retrospective cross-sectional study.

Setting: Retrospective review of ice hockey injuries presenting to 2 tertiary care and 5 community care EDs in Edmonton, Alberta.

Patients: Two cohorts of minor ice hockey players were constructed. The pre-age change cohort consisted of 4215 registered male hockey players. The post-age change cohort consisted of 3811 registered male hockey players.

Assessment Of Risk Factors: The risk of fracture, head and neck injury (intracranial and nonintracranial), and all other injuries presenting to EDs were compared between the pre-age change and post-age change cohorts.

Main Outcome Measures: Presentation to an ED with an injury occurring in ice hockey between September 1 and April 31 for the years 1997 through 2010.

Results: Overall, significantly lower injury rates were observed in the post-age change cohort for players in the Peewee division; however, no significant differences were observed for the rate of fractures, and intracranial or nonintracranial head and neck injuries. There were no statistically significant differences observed between the pre-age change and post-age change cohorts in the Atom or Bantam divisions.

Conclusions: Introducing body checking 1 year earlier than in a previous cohort (11 vs 12 years of age) neither significantly decreased nor increased the rate of serious ice hockey injuries occurring 2 years after the introduction of body checking. Further research is recommended to evaluate the claim that introducing body checking lowers injury rates in older divisions of hockey.