LIFE'S ACCEPTABLE RISKS

Another hockey game, another limp body. This time the victim was Marc
Savard of the Boston Bruins, lying unconscious on the ice after a
devastating hit to the head by Matt Cooke of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But unlike all the other times, this time the NHL's general managers
were about to meet and discuss, among other things, whether hits to
the head should be banned. The pressure for such a ban has been
growing for years. And now this.

And so the cry has gone up. Just do it! They probably will.

But I find this puzzling. Why stop there? Banning hits to the head is
likely to reduce the number of limp bodies and concussions somewhat.
But it won't eliminate them. Hockey is a sport in which large men
wearing armour rush around on a hard surface and, every now and then,
crash into each other at high speed. Even if one particular variety
of crash is removed from the game, there will be more limp bodies and
concussions. It's a mathematical certainty.

So why not ban hockey? Playing would be a crime punishable by up to
two years in jail and a fine of not less than $1,000. Organizing a
game would be a much more serious offence. That would get you up to
seven years in prison. And since there's a lot of money involved in
hockey, the fine would have to be up to, say, $1 million. Does the
RCMP have Gary Bettman's address?

I know. That's a little extreme. It's unnecessary, after all. We
could just make it a crime to play "contact" hockey. Hockey without
body-checking would be legal. It would be like basketball on skates.
Of course this wouldn't eliminate all injuries, but it would come
close to ensuring that we never again see a player lying limp on the ice.

And yet no one is suggesting this. The most anyone is demanding is a
tweaking of the rules that would allow hockey to continue to be fast,
violent, and risky. How odd.

The same thing is happening in football, incidentally. After
congressional pressure, the NFL has tweaked its rules to reduce the
frequency and ferocity of some concussions. Physicians, sports
writers, and retired players are pushing for more changes. But
football is a game in which giants form lines and smash into each
other. Play after play after play. And when football players aren't
smashing into each other, they're smashing into tackling dummies.
Hour after hour after hour. Football destroys knees and backs and
hips. It scrambles brains. It turns players into middle-aged,
mentally unbalanced, shambling wrecks.

Tweaked rules might make football slightly less like a meat grinder,
but it will still be brutal and it will still turn players into
middle-aged, mentally unbalanced, shambling wrecks. And everyone's
cool with that.

Like I said, odd.

Imagine a new product. It's dangerous. But lots of people like it and
they defend it by saying it's not so bad. It only "occasionally"
blows out knees. And herniates discs. And tears ligaments, breaks
bones, and snaps necks. And it's only now and then that it inflicts
horrific concussions which can lead to Alzheimer's disease, dementia,
and death. Besides, it comes with a warning label.

Would anyone demand that this product be banned? Oh yes. And it would
be. In a heartbeat.

Take a look at how governments handled MDMA, the drug better known as
ecstasy. It was banned in the 1980s. Why? Well, it is not entirely
safe. No drug is. But I know what the scientific evidence says about
the risks of consuming ecstasy and the risks of playing football and
if my kid insisted on doing one or the other I'd tell him to stay the
hell away from football.

Same thing with khat, a drug popular among East African immigrants.
It was legal until about a decade ago. Then it was banned. It's a
mild stimulant with addictive qualities. Like coffee. But the police
don't raid Starbucks.

I could pile up examples, but I think the point is clear: Place the
decisions we make about risk side by side and they make no sense.

Sometimes we consider risk to be completely unacceptable. Even a
smidgen of risk. Even when the only people involved are consenting adults.

In one poll, a majority of Canadians actually agreed that government
should ensure we have a "zero risk" environment. And yet those same
Canadians just spent two weeks in orgiastic celebration of sports
that put people at risk of injury, paralysis, and death.

As I said before: odd. And it's universal. When a Georgian luger lost
control of his cafeteria tray and rocketed to his death, the Georgian
government announced it would honour the young man by building a luge
track so other young Georgians could risk violent death.

But stay away from pot, young Georgians! That stuff's dangerous!

Many factors drive these wildly discrepant attitudes. I wrote a book
about them.

But fundamentally, it comes down to feelings.

We are emotionally attached to hockey, the Olympics, coffee, and
other risk-bearing substances and activities. That attachment changes
our perceptions of the risks. It makes us resist conclusions that
follow logically from the reasoning we apply to less-favoured risks.

Conclusions like banning football. Or turning hockey into basketball on skates.