Optometry

Visors do not interfere with hockey players

Detroit Red Wings top scorer and captain Steve Yzerman suffered a scratched cornea and a fractured left eye orbit when he was hit by the puck on May 1. His vision was stilled blurred after the four-hour emergency surgery he underwent after the game. A few months earlier, in January, Owen Nolan of the Toronto Maple Leafs almost lost the use of his eye when he was hit by defenseman Jay McKee’s stick. However, this incident was not enough to convince Nolan to protect his face better when he returned to the line-up.

The widespread refusal in the National Hockey League (NHL) to wear the visor appears totally irresponsible to two young optometrists at Université de Montréal, Sheila Laplante and Sophie Pilon. After a study of the most popular eye protectors used by professionals, they are adamant: “There is no statistically significant difference for visual acuity, colour vision and sensitivity to contrast with or without eye protection,” they write in their research report, which could soon be published in a scientific journal. According to the latest data on the question, wearing the visor is almost marginal, since only 132 of 700 NHL players do so. The main reason they give for not wearing it is reduction in visual quality. For Philadelphia Flyers player Eric Lindros, who was also the victim of an eye injury, wearing the visor is the same as “driving in the rain without windshield wipers.” “We wanted to know if they were justified in complaining about this factor,” Sheila Laplante explains. “Our conclusions are very clear: they are wrong.” The protectors they studied (Itech and Oklay half-shields, currently the most popular in the league) “do not significantly influence visual perception,” they wrote. “It remains to determine what other factors might lead to abandoning the visor, and what is their actual impact on players’ performance and visual comfort.”

Readers will recall that a controversy erupted last winter when CBC sports commentator Don Cherry criticized players from Québec and Europe for their tendency to wear the visor. On the January 24 edition of Hockey Night in Canada , he stated that they were “wimps.” According to the study conducted by the School of Optometry , players who wear face protectors should actually be encouraged, given the seriousness of sports injuries. “Statistics gathered by the Canada Safety Council show that in the last 25 years, 34% of all ocular lesions can be attributed to hockey accidents, making this the number one causal factor of eye injuries. All these injuries were suffered by players who were not wearing visors.” Since 1972, more than 298 players have lost the use of an eye, the researchers report. None of these players was wearing a Canadian Standard Association approved visor.