I have to admit it: the first time I saw someone wearing one
of those protective headgear pieces at a curling club, I had no idea what it was. I thought maybe
it was a head warmer or something.
But these days, the Ice Halo and Sport Band may not be exactly commonplace,
but it certainly is more usual than unusual.
And now, the inventor of the Ice Halo is being recognized. Barbara
Armstrong of Barrie won a Barrie Business Award for her invention which is sold
in 15 countries. Armstrong came up with the idea out of necessity, as
Simcoe.com explained:
I have seen scores of people slip and fall over the years
but I hadn’t seen anyone hurt their head until playing in a bonspiel a few
years ago at a Toronto club. A hard takeout from another sheet just ticked a
rock and shot over to another sheet where a sweeper preparing to slide out
alongside the next stone had his feet taken out from under him. He landed hard,
hit his head and blood started coming out.
Thankfully, the gentleman turned out
to be OK, but just seeing the blood on the ice and him being carted off on a
stretcher by the paramedics was enough to shake me up.
Of course it wasn’t enough to get me to wear the Ice Halo. I
guess like a lot of curlers, my ego is bigger than my sensibility.
For those in Ontario reading this, there’s also a great
article by Rory Munro in the Ontario Curling Report this month on a team of
London women who have embraced the Ice Halo and even started dressing them up,
adding decorations to them.
The team is headed up by Dr. Shannon Venance, a neurologist and Associate Professor of Clinical Neurological
Sciences at Western University. She noted the increasing number of falls in her
league.
“Last year we had
three or four women we curl with take unexpected falls on the ice with
significant whacks to the back of their heads. It’s just such a horrifying
sound when you hear it,” Venance told Munro. “There were goose eggs,
concussions; two of them were out of curling for two to three weeks,” said the
fifth-year curler.
“Part of what I do
as a neurologist is thinking about the brain and the safety of the brain.
Concussion in sport is really in the news these days and a concussion can be
debilitating. Some people don’t ever recover,” said the doctor.
That’s scary stuff, to be sure. But will it drive more
people to wear the Ice Halos? It’s an interesting and increasingly important
question that curlers need to ask.
2 comments:
I had a fall a couple years back, and was knocked out cold. It took 5 staples to hold my brains in place. I'm definitely sensitive to the prospect of it happening again, but I'm not sure that I'm likely to wear the Ice-Halo. I love the fun they're having with the product, but it does seem more likely that the ladies — who, it seems, are more likely to wear headband ear warmers and such — are more likely to wear the Ice-Halo. Now, if the Ice-Halo were to get tucked into a full hat... I might be more likely to give it a try.
I love the idea of mixing it into a hat. Right now, it does look a little nerdy, I guess. However, that might be a small price to pay to hold your brains in!
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