DecEMBER  7, 2003

ALLAN RYAN, Toronoto Star

For a moment there yesterday, some seven years removed from being told his hockey days were done, Dan Nicoletti choked with emotion.
Same thing had happened to him five years back when he'd first been asked to tell his tale before a group of doctors gathering understanding on hockey concussions.
"I thought I'd be over it ... that I'd be able to do it without getting emotional," said Nicoletti, one of several guest speakers at a well-received seminar on the subject that, at 8 in the morning, attracted close to 600 physicians, team trainers, therapists and coaches to the Air Canada Centre.  "I felt I was doing okay � till I caught a glimpse of my parents sitting there." And, suddenly, it got very hard for Nicoletti to speak.

After eight years with the Toronto Marlboros (of which father Jim remains president), he'd been 16 that 1995-96 season, a rookie with the Junior A St. Michael's Buzzers. He'd been GTHL defenceman of the year in 1994, made the Ontario under-17 team in '95 and, in the spring of '96, was a 13th-round pick of the Windsor Spitfires.

That last bit would've come after suffering three concussions over the course of the season with the Buzzers but before, after finally taking some time off, a fourth � and final � concussion playing summer hockey.

Nick Kypreos, another guest speaker yesterday, could relate. Twelve years a pro, lastly with the Leafs and now a hockey analyst with Sportsnet, Kypreos said it took him months to begin to understand the cumulative effect of all those sticks and pucks to the head.
"Those things add up,'' Kypreos said. "It's like layers of an onion being stripped away.
"If I'd have known back then to take an extra week off, perhaps my last concussion (1998) wouldn't have caught up with me so quickly.
 

"Denial, that's a big part of our game. Hockey players are very focused people; we tend to have blinders on.  But I was 32 (when he called it a career). I'd played 12 years and could've pushed the envelope for another couple. Unfortunately, younger players can't come to that conclusion."

"It wasn't so much making the NHL," said Nicoletti, now studying to be a teacher and coaching young Marlies. "That was always secondary. I just wanted to keep playing the game. It was being told I had to leave the game ... not being able to make that choice for myself."
For the first concussion, Nicoletti's head had ricocheted off the boards after taking a hit. He was told, basically, well ... that he'd had his bell rung ... to get some sleep, get some food into him and he'd be fine.
And he played a couple of days later. Got into a fight, banged his head on the ice.
"After, I felt dizzy. In the dressing room, with my peers, guys were going, `Hey rookie, way to go,' and that felt very uncomfortable.
"The next week, I was still dizzy. They put me up on forward but I went back on defense late in the game and took a hit into the boards. It dented my helmet."
Only when he later set up to take a face-off did someone � the opposing coach, in fact � sense something wasn't right.  So, four months off, then summer hockey.
"It was only a mild hit," he said, "but I hit my head on the ice."

 Another layer of the onion.