Ice hockey players are at a high risk to sustain a concussion. Most of the concussion-inducing hits are to the jaw region, nevertheless, most players do not wear any protective gear shielding the jaw.  This parametric study used finite element simulations in LS-Dyna to evaluate the potential of foam materials in a jaw guard that could be attached to a helmet to reduce the concussion risk.  Here, it was investigated how nine different foam materials influence the ability of the jawguard to protect against concussion. Furthermore, aspects like foam thickness, shell thickness, and the impacting object were evaluated. In a second part, the formerly used HIII head model was exchanged with the KTH HBM, a FE model with a detailed representation of a jaw, and it was looked at how a movable jaw affects the head kinematics. Stiffer foams with a certain stress-strain behavior tend to aid best in energy absorption in the simulated crash scenarios and therefore lower the risk of sustaining a concussion. Impact angle and location influence the result significantly. Two simulated impacts show a decrease in concussion risk by up to 8.2\% and 6.9\% respectively when the jawguard was implemented, while the two other impacts resulted in an increase in concussion risk. Shell and foam thickness variation results depend mostly on the impact scenarios. However, it was found that a soft impactor helps tremendously in avoiding concussions. The hits on the KTH HBM tend to produce higher linear and angular accelerations but no significant difference is seen in angular velocity.  In conclusion, using stiff foams in ice hockey jawguards is a promising approach to attenuate impact energy caused by a collision during an ice hockey game. However, the effect of the jawguard on the concussion risk is very sensitive to the impact location and direction.

Ice hockey is a sport with high velocities and a large number of impacts to the head. The high occurrence of concussions is being recognized, and both short and long term consequences have been found. As body checking is the main situation inducing concussions, often in the form of shoulder-to-face impacts, there is thought to be a potential to lowering the rates of concussions with equipment that covers the jaw and chin area. In this study, in-game videos from the Swedish Hockey League were analyzed regarding impact situations and impact locations. The most occurring impact situations were simulated with finite element simulation on a Hybrid-III 50th percentile head and neck model wearing a standard ice hockey helmet. Three jawguard designs were developed and tested with the model, and seven different attachments were tested on two of the designs. The results showed varying effect of the jawguard, depending on the impact situation. In impacts to the side of the chin, all three designs reduced the strains in the brain, by successfully reducing the axial rotation. In impacts to the side of the face/head and to the front of the chin, the jawguard designs produced higher strains in the brain than without any protection. The helmet in this study was attached to the head model with a chin cup, and this may have had a significant effect on the strains of the brain. Other limitations to the simulation set up indicates that the jawguards should be tested on a more realistic model to properly evaluate the jawguard.

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The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze how Swedish ice hockey clubs portray (image and text) and report (coverage) their male and female representative teams through the club's channels (Instagram & Website), and to compare portray with the reporting in Swedish sports tabloids (Expressen & Aftonbladet). Through methodological triangulation consisting of quantitative content analysis and multimodal analysis, data is collected and analyzed to identify potential differences, similarities, and patterns. The analysis time was October 1–31, 2023.  Hypothesis:  What space is allocated to male and female hockey players on Instagram, websites, and in tabloids? How are the different genders represented in terms of images and text? Are there similarities or differences in how external sports tabloids report on each gender compared to the team's own channels? The study utilizes statistics and graphical analysis to measure the frequency and extent of gender representation within the clubs' communications. The results indicate significant differences in the amount of coverage and the type of content given to women's and men's teams, on the clubs' own platforms. The type of textual content in articles given to women and men in external sports tabloids wasn't any bigger differences. Women's teams generally received less coverage and different image and text presentations compared to men's teams on the hockey club's platforms, there were big differences in coverage of gender between the best club and the worst in the analysis. The tabloids showed an even greater inequality in reporting, with a markedly higher frequency of articles about men's teams. Some teams are more balanced than others when it comes to coverage and space allocated in the hockey clubs.

As many as 3.8 million sports-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) occur each year, nearly all of which are mild or concussive. These injuries are especially concerning given recent evidence that repeated concussions can lead to long-term neurodegenerative processes. One way of reducing the number of injuries is through improvements in protective equipment design. Safety standards and relative performance ratings have led to advancements in helmet design that have reduced severe injuries and fatalities in sports as well as concussive injuries. These standards and evaluation methods frequently use laboratory methods and brain injury criteria that have been developed through decades of research dedicated to determining the human tolerance to brain injury. It is necessary to determine which methods are the most appropriate for evaluating the performance of helmets and other protective equipment. Therefore, the aims of this research were to evaluate the use of different brain injury criteria and apply them to laboratory evaluation of helmets. These aims were achieved through evaluating the predictive capability of different brain injury criteria and comparing laboratory impact systems commonly used to evaluate helmet performance. Laboratory methods were developed to evaluate the relative performance of hockey helmets given the high rate of concussions associated with the sport. The implementation of these methods provided previously unavailable data on the relative risk of concussion associated with different hockey helmet models. / Ph. D.