The Hit That Literally Ruined A Man's Career 

I lived in Philly during the Lindros era. The organization and its medical staff completely ruined this man. Those people were totally incompetent.

He almost certainly had more concussions than the official injury record. Opposing players would launch at him from the other side of the ice on a regular basis to try to take him out and usually bounce off, but those kinds of jarring hits can give concussions too. He probably played so many stretches of games concussed that it became the new normal for him.

I liked Theo fleurys explanation that the reason why lindros never skated with his head up was because he grew up being the biggest and strongest person on the ice until he got into the NHL, so he's never had to keep his head on a swivel

As a former football and hockey player, I am going to go out on a limb and say those were not his first concussions. Any time your head hits the ice, glass, other helmets, and/or fists, that is a tiny concussion that builds into serious, long term, brain injuries.

crazy how if concussions didn't play such a big role in many players careers that some of them could still be playing or just recently be retiring

The craziest thing is he did that scoring pace during the dead puck era.

Lindros and Kariya weren’t the only ones. Pat Lafontaine was being described as the greatest American born player in NHL history when concussions took him out of the game in the early to mid 90s. The Panthers had a gem of a player in David Booth in the early 20-teens whose fearless and hard working play made him a perennial 20-30 goal scorer until an open ice blindside hit to the head by Mike Richards (who never even got suspended for it as I recall) ended one season early and he was never able to return to form after. For two decades the league turned a blind eye to these dirty hits that were taking out their star players while mystifyingly cracking down on enforcers (the guys whose job it was to make other teams not want to play dirty because they’d become targets) and then complaining about scoring being down.

Great video! I really enjoyed it. You have a great way of story telling.

I was watching a lot of hockey during this time period. given what we know about concussions now, it's like they did everything WRONG . The worst thing is that it's not over. Concussions, especially repeated ones can have serious life long consequences especially when you get older with dementia etc . I hope he's going to be okay, even though I was obligated to hate him at the time (Penguins fan)

The biggest explanation for why Lindros had the habit of skating with his head down mostly comes from him being bigger than most of the others in the OHL that they usually just bounced off him.

I still say that he developed that habit as he grew up in hocky. Being the biggest and best at lower levels meant that he wasn't risking as much as the smaller players would bounce off him at those levels. Then when he got to the NHL where he was now playing against players who were closer in ability and size it became a risk but by then he had already fully developed the habit of not being afraid to have his head down that much. Just a hypothesis at least.

As is mentioned in the video, when you play as hard as Lindros was doing, opposing teams will not be easy on you. It was also an era when hockey was as much about dominating physically as puck control.

As a native Flyers fan, I’m a huge Lindros fan and is by far, my favorite player. I wish nothing but the best for Eric and his family. Miss you wearing black and orange!

I went to a stick handling camp a few times as a kid. One of the biggest things they stressed was

As a Red Wings fan who watched them in the mid to late 90s to now, we definitely feared Lindros and respected the hell out of him even though we didn’t like Philly too much. Love ya Philly 🧹

My favorite player alltime. Iam from Czech Rep. We have JJ68 and Hasek, but Lindros man, he is my favorite. 88 is my date of birth and my name is Erik, which was not common in our country in the 90s, I was always the tallest in elementary school and my classmates called me Lindros :)

That goal from Kariya after the Stevens hit is ICONIC! Kariya and Lindros were 2 of my favorite NON Red Wings players.

ive always felt that the whole lindros thing was a cumulative failure of all of his coaches throughout his career. he played his minor/junior career during the whole keep your head up at all times and because he outsized his opponents he never had to adapt. its tragic but ultimately its on both him and his coaches, and IMHO the league overcorrected because players were leading with their heads. you would NEVER see players in the 80's cross center ice with their head down because you'd get killed, hell even gretz the one time he did it got blown up.

We were season ticket holders and my friend was sitting behind the Flyers goal . Her face says it all . Scott Stevens was at that time one of the best defensemen. The definition of "never skate with your head down" Lindros play made us all stand whenever he got the puck. It was an unforgetable time as a Flyers fan . The 4-0 sweep by Detroit was sad. My heart hurts seeing this video and it is an excellent documentary. I also for the record remember the Flyers were on a role and doing fine without Eric playing and the sudden insertion of him in this game kinda blew the season most likely. Thank you for this.

mad magazine said "hitting in ice hockey is legal if it is a clean hit, see guy unconscious with all the teeth knocked out of his mouth, very clean."