Armstrong Cooper Youth Hockey

Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center
Principal Investigator: Michael J. Stuart M.D.
Research Coordinator: Matthew Sorenson M.A.
Hockey Center Team Member, Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center

The USA Hockey Safety and Protective Equipment Committee and Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center have established the “USA Hockey National Registry for Catastrophic Injuries in Ice Hockey.” This project is funded by a grant from the USA Hockey Foundation.

The purpose of this USA Hockey registry is to collect information on the prevalence of catastrophic injuries for both genders in youth, high school, junior, college, national program, adult amateur, minor league, and professional ice hockey in the United States. The goal is to design and maintain a comprehensive registry of catastrophic injuries in ice hockey that will be the primary source of catastrophic ice hockey injury data in the United States. The registry will provide data to support potential rule and equipment changes.

A catastrophic injury is defined as any ailment occurring during ice hockey participation (youth, high school, junior, college, national program, adult amateur, minor league and professional) that results in death, cranial fracture, spine fracture or dislocation with spinal cord involvement, complex concussion with permanent cognitive deficit and eye injury with permanent visual impairment/blindness or a permanent disability resulting in a substantial reduction of physical ability.

A potentially catastrophic injury includes spine fractures/dislocations without spinal cord involvement, lacerations with involvement of arteries, veins or nerves (including neck lacerations), internal organ rupture/laceration (spleen, liver etc.), and eye injury with transient visual impairment, occurring during ice hockey participation. This determination shall be based on the circumstances of the injury and the assessment of the qualified medical professional in that
instance.

This registry will provide a valuable resource for analyzing types of injuries and their influences. Factors such as mechanism of injury, level of player participation, position, rule violations at time of injury, volitional intent, and equipment or lack of, at time of injury will be analyzed. More sophisticated analysis will be conducted as the number of catastrophic injuries accumulates over time.

Feel free to visit us at our website at:
http://clinicaltrials.mayo.edu/clinicaltrialdetails.cfm?trial_id=100744

Please do not hesitate to contact us either by phone at: 1.866.926.2563 or Email at: hockeyinjury@mayo.edu if you have any information on a catastrophic or a potentially catastrophic injury.