The increased concern demonstrated these days regarding traumatic brain injuries - including bleeding on the brain, swelling and concussions - spanning the entire spectrum of organized sports has been well documented in some of our recent blog posts. In a March 1 post, for example, we noted the strong efforts of the National Football League to recognize and minimize head injuries to young players. We followed that up shortly thereafter with a story chronicling Little League Baseball's focus on traumatic brain injury and its efforts to develop an improved helmet to protect against blows to the head.

The National Hockey League ("NHL") - certainly no stranger to violent head hits and collisions - is now in the media glare as essentially a bookend piece to recent stories concerning head injuries. In the wake of ugly hard contact in a recent game that sent a Montreal player careening headfirst into a glass partition, giving him a concussion and cracking vertebra in his neck, Air Canada is threatening to pull its support for the league out of concerns that association with it could hurt the airline's image.

Denis Vandal, Air Canada's director of marketing, says that "action must be taken by the NHL before we are encountered with a fatality." Citing the propensity for "irresponsible accidents," Vandal says that the airline may find it necessary to distance itself from the NHL "from a corporate social responsibility standpoint."

The NHL - which did not suspend or fine the player who initiated the contact cited by Air Canada - is not suffering the airline's comments passively. Air Canada has a lucrative charter service that caters to many NHL teams, and league commissioner Gary Bettman says that, just as the airline can do what it wants regarding its sponsorship dollars, so, too, can the league make other arrangements for travel if it sees fit.

In the meantime, fighting on the rink and hard body blows continue to be a way of life in the NHL.

Related Resource: www.google.com "Air Canada threatens to pull NHL sponsorship" March 10, 2011