There are some concerns that high school football games like the one last week at Rocky Stone Park in Moncton, that left a total of nine players injured, could shed a negative light on the game.
Four of those players in that controversial game suffered concussions.
“I don’t know what high school teams do, but I think that it is important that every team that is playing high school football has a certain standard of concussion awareness, and preventative measures and also rules about when a player returns to play if a concussion does occur, ” says Executive Director of Football NB, Josh Harris.
Football NB does not oversee high school teams, but Harris says there is a concern when there are incidents like this, it will impact the sport in the province as a whole, “This is probably the biggest reason why we have in the last few years, reached out to high school football leagues, to get them to be more proactive in this area. The way we see it, is whenever an event like this happens, the general population isn’t going to differentiate between high school football leagues and minor football with Football New Brunswick. Whenever a story breaks that is negative on the sport, it definitely affects the entire brand and all football. That is why we want to ensure that all football leagues that we have an impact on, are being played as safely as possible.”
Harris says “Football New Brunswick does try to work closely with high school football, in an effort to have them implement as many safety rules as FNB has. Some of the measures that FNB takes, are age increments, for instance. We mandate a two year age increment, so you would never have anyone more than two years apart playing football in a tackle football game against each other. That is not the case in high school football. There could potentially be a grade 9 student playing against a grade 12. We also have what is called a Head Out Of the Game rule. It was put into place about two years ago, and it essentially penalizes any player when the first point of contact is made to the head. We believe this is a great step in preventing the risk of contact and head injury. We also have a mandatory Safe Contact course that Coaches must take. We also have a concussion document that parents much read and sign before their child plays in the minor leagues.”
Many of the initiatives that FNB follows, are mandated by Football Canada.
Harris says any negative story on the game of football could in turn, affect the number of potential players in the province who register to play the game.