Shoulder Check: Investigating Shoulder Injury Rates, Types, Severity, Mechanisms, and Risk Factors in Canadian Youth Ice Hockey

Objective: To describe shoulder-related injury rates (IRs), types, severity, mechanisms, and risk factors in youth ice hockey players during games and practices.

Design: Secondary analysis of data from a 5-year prospective cohort study, Safe-to-Play (2013-2018).

Setting: Canadian youth ice hockey.

Participants: Overall, 6584 player-seasons (representing 4417 individual players) participated. During this period, 118 shoulder-related games and 12 practice injuries were reported.

Assessment of risk factors: An exploratory multivariable mixed-effects Poisson regression model examined the risk factors of body checking policy, weight, biological sex, history of injury in the past 12 months, and level of play.

Main outcome measures: Injury surveillance data were collected from 2013 to 2018. Injury rates with 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated using Poisson regression.

Results: The shoulder IR was 0.35 injuries/1000 game-hours (95% CI, 0.24-0.49). Two-thirds of game injuries (n = 80, 70%) resulted in >8 days of time-loss, and more than one-third (n = 44, 39%) resulted in >28 days of time-loss. An 83% lower rate of shoulder injury was associated with policy prohibiting body checking compared with leagues allowing body checking (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.17; 95% CI, 0.09-0.33). A higher shoulder IR was observed for those who reported any injury in the last 12-months compared with those with no history (IRR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.33-3.01).

Conclusions: Most shoulder injuries resulted in more than 1 week of time-loss. Risk factors for shoulder injury included participation in a body-checking league and recent history of injury. Further study of prevention strategies specific to the shoulder may merit further consideration in ice hockey.