Head First
ONE HIT. That’s all it took to change Matt Eagles’ future completely. Matt can’t count how many times he collided with the boards during the 19 years he played hockey. He’d even been injured before. But this time was different. This time he wasn’t prepared and it knocked him out cold.
When he came to, he could sense something was wrong. It wasn’t the muffled sounds of his coach’s voice or the confusion that clouded his brain like a thick blanket of fog. It was the dread that set in as he realized this was it. This was the hit that would force him to hang up his skates—indefinitely.
Hockey is in Matt’s blood. He grew up at the rink, travelling around with his father, a former professional forward in the National Hockey League, for 15 seasons. Matt was groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps, playing four years of Major Junior Hockey and then three at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., where he earned his bachelor of arts in economics. He was on his way to achieving his dream until the last in a series of repeated concussions forced him to prematurely retire from sport.
Invited to tell his story at an injury prevention convention, Matt met Dr. Charles Tator, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and founder of Think First Canada (now a part of Parachute Canada). It was during his early hockey days that Matt first learned about the importance of concussion safety from the Think First video series. Inspired by Dr. Tator’s initiatives, Matt wondered how he too, could use his personal experience to help young athletes, coaches and parents stay informed about concussion safety.
Read more on how Matt educates young athletes about concussion safety on FaceForward.