[Ice hockey injuries. Studies of the highest West German league]

Ice hockey is the speediest team sport and also considered to be one of the roughest of all sports. Due to the high rate of injuries and the lack of competent studies in the Federal Republic of Germany, we started recording the First League in connection with injuries and their causes via a thorough questioning of the players. The results of the hitherto evaluated 88 out of a total of 207 First League Players - i.e. 42.5% - show that head injuries are most frequent; however, lesions of shoulders and upper and lower extremities are far more portentous ++ to the affected players in many respects. The association with causes and mechanisms of the different kinds of injuries make it clear that a marked tightening of the rules and an improvement in the protective clothing would offer good possibilities to reduce the rate of injuries drastically in ice hockey a kind of sport that is steadily getting more and more popular.