Play It Cool: Hockey Safety

Abstract

Ice hockey is a popular team sport, particularly, for North American adults and youth. Hockey players are at risk of serious injury resulting from collisions that may occur at high speeds. The Play It Cool Program was established to prevent serious injuries in ice hockey. This program is structured on four fundamental principles. First, this program was accessed over the internet and required a facilitator who could monitor and coach participants. Second, the program insisted upon continuous and active coach participation. Third, it demanded asynchronous delivery and utilized a variety of technological tools that were made accessible and flexible for coach participation. Fourth, the program initiated a community of practitioners, whereby coaches could interact and facilitate a learning and training environment. Initially, the Play It Cool program was well received by participating stakeholders; however, the lack of support from hockey’s governing bodies created barriers, which ultimately resulted in difficulties for sustainability as an organized program. Nonetheless, the modules and curriculum, which are the key components of the program, continue to be successfully utilized or adopted as exemplary guides in continuing education courses for coaches, parents, educators, and health care professionals in ice hockey, as well as other contact sports. Regardless of sustainability difficulties of the program, Play It Cool contains key exemplary elements that can be implemented into various sports-related injury prevention initiatives.

Appendices

Brio Model : Play It Cool—Hockey Injury Prevention Program

Group Served: Children in the developmental ages (8–16).

Goal: To reduce injuries and exposure to risk of injury in youth ice hockey.

Background	Resources	Implementation	Outcome
Play It Cool was created in 2001 by the Canadian Spinal Research Organization (CSRO) and Mitron Sports to respond to the need for a safe ice hockey tool that could be available to prevent spinal injuries in hockey Following evaluation of the program, Dr. John Lewko, from the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation (ONF) and Barry Munro of the CSRO, observed a lack of stakeholder (i.e., coaches) buy-in for the program The program was modified into a facilitated online delivery system comprised of multimedia tools that delivers content asynchronously over the web Delivery includes regularly scheduled teleconferences and asynchronous web-based discussion boards Play It Cool is based as a set of seven ice hockey competencies The program is continuously modified as a result of feedback from the stakeholder network The target population of the program is comprised of coaches that are directly working with children in the developmental ages (8–16)	The CSRO and the ONF allocated funding for designing and implementing the program Dr. Montelpare employed 20 undergraduate students at Lakehead University to conduct research and evaluation on the components of Play It Cool The developers of the Play It Cool program have already established a vital and strong relationship with coaches The development team consistently and continuously provide their time and feedback about the program	The design of the website has been particularly successful and well received by stakeholders The research teams have tried to make the curriculum a comprehensive, consolidated, and well-established conglomeration of information The program has successfully been able to heighten the awareness about the risks of injuries in ice hockey Overall, it is important that the lines of communication are open between those who develop and implement the Play It Cool Program and the hockey federations who govern the leagues Need to be more sensitive to the time constraints of volunteer coaches and the program should continue to cover material, in content and presentation, which is relevant to users, depending on the level Coach recruitment is one practice that has been suggested to be effective but has not achieved optimal participation rates Although they expressed enthusiasm and tremendous support for the program verbally, there has been a lack of follow-up to participate by coaches	Pilot studying is still ongoing as the Play It Cool Program is still completing evaluations for their first assessments Stakeholders participating in the research projects to provide insight and outcome results into the impact the program has on the target population A positive outcome includes the enthusiasm by participants and players’ parents as well as the rapidity of uptake of the program A negative outcome has been the lack of buy in from the sport governing bodies Challenges of particular importance have been: – Commitment to completing the modules, course drop-out rate is too high – Lack of incentives to complete the program – Continuous training of facilitators to keep them up to date on the knowledge they have and information they provide to the coaches – Length of the program Research results are required to be released to make a definite conclusion as to the program’s impact on reducing injuries and exposure to risk of injury

Life Space Model: Play It Cool—Hockey Injury Prevention Program

Sociocultural: civilization/community	Interpersonal: primary and secondary relationships	Physical environments: where we live	Internal states: biochemical/genetic and means of coping
Facilitated online delivery system comprised of multimedia tools that delivers content asynchronously over the web Program presented in seven modules (http://bolt.lakeheadu.ca/~playcool/), which are held over an 8-week period (3 weeks of delivery, 1 week break, 4 weeks delivery). The online format includes hyperlinked text, videos, animation, sound effects, discussion boards, questionnaires and blogs	The actual target population of the Play It Cool program is comprised of coaches that are directly linked to or working with children in the developmental ages (8–16). Therefore, the content of the program was designed to target these coaches	Teaching coaches how to teach skills in a passive approach that is not adopted easily by participants Competencies speak to an active approach that engages participants and makes them responsible to learn the information and apply it The aim of the program was to create awareness and a usable program that can be applied in many different ways by coaches and players	Empowerment of coaches by training in proper technique and physical conditioning, among other aspects Risk management and assessment utilized to increase safety practices in ice hockey