Thanks for the question, Megan.
I'd like to start to answer that by saying when we look at the mandating of helmets in ice hockey, we have to recognize two things. Kids are still getting concussions. Helmets were actually designed to prevent what we refer to as focal injuries, which are pinpoint injuries that can lead to skull fractures and things like that. While they can lessen trauma to the head and minimize concussions to a certain point, they cannot prevent concussions because of the way the brain sits inside of the skull. Louis is probably much more articulate at describing that than I am.
That said, the question I always ask when I look at this data is why is this stuff happening in the first place? Why is it a kid takes a shot to the head? What is happening behind the scenes that's leading to that type of action? Can education prevent that? It can't necessarily, because once athletes get on the playing field, stuff happens. We can do our best to try to prevent that, and education is probably a critical piece.
I think by going back to the fundamental question, why these things are happening, which Paul has asked, and understanding that more fully, then either we can develop new best practices or we can work with the existing best practices. The outcome is changing the behaviour that leads to injury. That's true of anything. We've seen that around seat-belt use. We've seen that around drunk driving. If we start to change people's behaviours, we can see a reduction in injuries. The outcome is fewer visits to the emergency room.
The other piece that quite frankly frequently gets lost in issues around youth and sports, especially with head trauma, is that we're not just talking about kids getting hurt playing a game of hockey. We're talking about kids who are also students getting hurt playing a game of hockey. What are the consequences in terms of their academic capabilities or advancement? If their brain injury is sufficient, do we lose them—