NEWARK, N.J. As the NHL grapples with the disputed effects of head injuries in hockey, Ben Lovejoy made what can be considered a positive contribution last month, becomingthe first active NHL player to pledge to donate his brain to CTE research.With his announcement, , the 33-year-old Devils defensemanjoined the more than 2,500 former athletes and military veterans who have pledged to donate their brains to the Boston University CTE Research Center since 2008. But NHL players by and large have been reluctant to join the fight. And with the leaguestill in the dawn of understandinghead trauma within the sport, Lovejoy has become a pioneer in helping raise awarene s about the options players have.He said his interest in donating his brainemerged three or four years ago, but it manifested when he read an article that the NHLPA sentover the summer.THE OLYMPIAN: The first headline on the email in June or July was that no active NHL player had pledged to donate their brain to CTE research," Lovejoy told Sporting News in a recent interview. There are about 200 NFL players Phillip Gaines Jersey who are currently playing that have done that, and no NHL player. I saw that and I immediately forwarded it to my agent and said, 'Can you figure out how do I do this?'"Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, is a progre sive degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma. Symptoms include memory lo s, impulse control problems, aggre sion, depre sion, anxiety and progre sive dementia.Known as punch drunk syndrome in its infancy, CTE was first described in Morgan Burnett Jersey the 1920s as a disease known to impact boxers. Today, it is most commonly a sociated with its controversial connection to football, a link that was made clear by the findings of neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee, the director of BUs CTE Research Center.In July, McKee published her report that examined 111 brains of former NFL players and found 110 of them to have CTE, from linemen to punters.Currently, the disease can only be diagnosed after death, though active research is aimed at learning how to identifyCTE in the living. In November, a paper published in the journal Neurosurgery reported thatbrain scan technology is able to diagnose CTE in the living, though scientists caution that more research is needed to corroborate the results. McKee has examined the brains of five former NHL players. All five were found to have CTE.In total, neuropathology has been conducted on the brains of 16 hockey players, nine of whom were diagnosed with the disease.Were not nearly as far in hockey research as we are in football because we just dont have the same numbers, .With a limited scope of research due to a lack of donations, the resulting data offers a slanted view of the disease and its prevalence. Even with the Sione Takitaki Jersey more robust statistics on football players, McKee noted the bias within the current donor sources and the impact it has on the research data.Families dont donate brains of their loved ones unle s theyre concerned about the person. So all the players in this study, on some level, were symptomatic. That leaves you with a very skewed population, .A disputed link between CTE and hockeyIn addition to BUs CTE Research Center, the Canadian Concu sion Centre has also conducted studies on the brains of former NHL players. Among those studied, the most notable and controversial cases are Steve Montador, who died in 2015, and Todd Ewen, who died in 2016.A former defenseman, Montador was found dead in his home at age 35 just one year into his NHL retirement. During the Vancouver natives 10 seasons in the league, he was no stranger to fights and suffered numerous concu sions that eventually ended his career.According to his family, Montador had been suffering from CTE symptoms that included depre sion, memory lo s, vertigo, insomnia and nausea. He planned on donating his brain and was found to have CTE upon testing. His son was born four days after his death.The NHL released a statement expre sing its sorrow regarding Montadors premature death, but the last sentence of the release stated, We do not agree that the reports and allegations made today establish any link between Steves death and his NHL career.MORE:When NHL commi sioner Gary Bettman was asked about the autopsy report that revealed Montador was living with CTE, he responded with a strong declaration that there is no established connection between the brain disease and playing in the NHL.Fast forward a year, former enforcer Todd Ewen, 45, shot himself in the head and died. Ewen spent 11 seasons in the NHL, racking up 1,911 career penalty minutes, and his family donated his brain to research after his death. It came as a shock to many when studies revealedEwen did not have CTE.Five months after the results of Ewens autopsy werereleased, Bettman referenced the case in a 24-page response to Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Blumenthal wrote Bettman a nine-question letter regarding the leagues stance on concu sions and CTE, as well as the safety of the sport on all Baker Mayfield Jersey levels.Blumenthals first question was, Do you believe there is a link between CTE and hockey?MORE: In his reply, Bettman referenced the active cla s-action lawsuit filed by former NHL players and their families against the league for its alleged failure to warn players about the short and long-term effects of repeated head trauma and concu sions. He blamed the media for hyping up unsupported fear of CTE and retold Ewens story, a serting that public opinion had built hasty a sumptions on an unsteady foundation of scientific evidence.The science regarding CTE, including on the a serted link to concu sions that you reference, remains nascent, particularly with respect to what causes CTE and whether it can be diagnosed by specific clinical symptoms, Bettman wrote. "The relationship between concu sions and the a serted clinical symptoms of CTE remains unknown... The NHL chooses to Ray-Ray Armstrong Jersey be guided on this very serious subject by the medical consensus of expert examining the science, not the media hype driven in part by plaintiffs counsel.Le sons learned from the NFLThe correlation between the NHL and the NFLs handling of concu sions and CTE is an easy line to draw. It was March of 2016 when the NFL acknowledged the link between football and CTE, thereafter settling its countle s concu sion lawsuits for $1 billion.After years of mismanaged concu sion research, increased rates of early player retirement and a juggernaut of a cla s action lawsuit, the NFL, to some degree, compromised. Its worth noting that as part of the settlement, the NFL admitted no fault, and avoided disclosing the details of what and when it knew about the ramifications of concu sions.Lower donation rates in hockey have naturally tempered its priorit