Warning for old-timers on the ice
Hockey is not for the faint of heart, so players must know their limits
January was a tough month for Chris Ebsworth, who organizes an old-timers hockey team called the Grey Hawks.
On Jan. 12, Ebsworth watched one of his closest friends, age 50, suffer a heart attack on the ice while playing in the Dorval Oldtimers Tournament. Two weeks later, another longtime friend and hockey teammate, age 56, suffered a heart attack away from the ice.
The first story has a happy ending. By luck, the referee for the game was Eric Dewar, who is the director of the Pointe-Claire Volunteer Rescue Unit. He performed CPR on the player and an arena defibrillator was also used. The player was rushed to hospital and operated on immediately for an artery that was 90 per cent blocked. He was told if all goes well, he could play hockey again in five weeks.
The second story doesn’t have a happy ending. That man died, leaving behind three children.
“It’s a wake-up call to all of us at that age to realize how fast it can happen and how important it is to know CPR and to be aware of symptoms of a heart attack,” said the 56-year-old Ebsworth, who owns Stinger Sport in Pointe-Claire. “When you see that happening to someone you know — a good friend — it’s incredibly scary. It really shakes you up.”
Ebsworth said that the first player was lucky his heart attack happened during a tournament game, with trained emergency people in the arena, and not in an empty arena late at night during a beer-league game. He added that it’s a good idea for every old-timers team to have at least one player who knows CPR (Ebsworth does) and be aware if there’s a defibrillator in the arena and know how to use it.
The Grey Hawks will be back in action this weekend at the Kirkland Oldtimers Tournament, and last week Ebsworth sent an email to his players asking them to go for a full medical checkup and stress test.
Ebsworth isn’t a medical expert, but Dr. Paul MacDonald of Sydney, N.S., is. He is the author of a study titled Hockey Takes Heart: Cardiac Disease Associated with Adult Hockey that was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. MacDonald gathered data during the 2006-07 season by putting heart monitors on 113 players between the ages of 30 and 70.
“What brought me to do the study was seeing men who were middleaged, but looked to be very healthy and not have a lot of risk factors, coming in after playing gentlemen’s hockey with heart attacks and major complications,” MacDonald said
“Hockey is obviously very popular … and people are playing older and older.”
DR. PAUL MACDONALD
in a phone interview. “That’s what got us to undertake the study.”
Saturday is CBC’s annual Hockey Day in Canada, a time to celebrate the sport, and MacDonald noted that “enthusiasm for hockey hasn’t waned at all in the country.”
He added: “Hockey is obviously very popular for both watching and also participation and people are playing older and older. The concern we found was that 100 per cent of the people we monitored had heart rates above the recommended target heart rate for exercise.”
In his report, MacDonald wrote: “The physical activity pattern that occurred during recreational hockey caused cardiac responses that might be dangerous to players’ health. More specifically, the players exceeded target and maximum heart rates, had poor heart rate recovery after exercise, and had episodes of non-sustained ventricular tachycardia and ST-segment depression of uncertain clinical significance.”
MacDonald explained that the target exercise heart rate is 55 to 85 per cent of your maximum age-predicted rate.
“That means 220 minus your age would be your maximum heart rate,” he explained. “So if you’re 40, your maximum heart rate is 180, so it’s recommended you exercise at roughly 55 up to 85 per cent of that maximum.
“This is well recognized,” MacDonald added. “For instance, the Montreal Canadiens know that you can perform at that level, but it’s 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 seconds, maybe. But they’re not going to have two- and three-minute shifts. The amateur crowd out there tends to just carry on. If you have an extended shift, you go from aerobic exercise that’s healthy with oxygen to anaerobic exercise and it becomes more dangerous.
“The other concern is that there are people middle-aged and older who may have some heart disease and aren’t aware of it. Our concern is that people who don’t do regular physical exercise — if your only exercise is hockey — that’s a fairly vigorous exercise to undertake.
“You shouldn’t play hockey to get in shape, you should get in shape to play hockey.”
February is Heart Month in this country with the Heart and Stroke Foundation hoping to alert Canadians to the risks. The foundation reports that heart disease and stroke take one life every seven minutes and that 90 per cent of Canadians have at least one risk factor.
MacDonald says old-timer hockey players should know what their maximum heart rate is and learn to measure it on the bench, suggesting all arenas post instructions for doing so. It’s also important to know the warning signs of a heart attack.
“Certainly central chest pain, heaviness, tightness, squeezing are the most common ones,” MacDonald said. “If you have trouble catching your breath after stopping and resting for a few minutes … those are things to be concerned about. Things like excessive sweating … nausea and vomiting are often other concerns with heart disease as well.
“If you have concerns … arm pains, chest pains … if you’re not feeling well, you shouldn’t play hockey. And while you’re playing hockey, if you develop symptoms you need to stop right away and tell people. Beyond that, people shouldn’t be smoking; diabetics are at higher risk; people should know what their blood pressure is and have that checked.
“That’s one of the problems … middle-aged men typically won’t go to see the doctor for anything. If your blood pressure is high normally … if it’s 150, when you’re on the ice it’s going to be 200, 220. If you start adding up exertion, severe blood pressure, high heart rates, you’re getting into a very dangerous place to be.”
And the ending might not be a happy one.