from http://www.nationalpost.com/home.asp?f=000404/250229
 
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Professor says hot helmets induce hockey violence
 
Ian Bailey
National Post
 
VANCOUVER - A criminologist who has linked higher brain temperatures to
increased aggression says hockey helmets with air conditioning could
decrease on-ice violence.
 
"You should probably have some kind of cooling system in those helmets,"
said Ehor Boyanowsky, of Simon Fraser University. "I'm not an engineer, but
it's something that should be looked at."
 
His research shows that higher brain temperatures lower the threshold for
human aggression.
 
The theory is relevant to hockey players because their helmets might have
the side effect of heating their brains, priming them to lash out on the
ice, as happened on Feb. 21 when a helmeted Marty McSorley of the Boston
Bruins attacked Donald Brashear of the Vancouver Canucks with his stick. He
has been charged with assault.
 
"In a conflict situation when people are provoking each other, some of the
equipment like hockey helmets actually exacerbates the situation," Prof.
Boyanowsky said.
 
He said his theories are also relevant to issues beyond hockey rinks,
ranging from crime to riots to road rage to global warming. He suggests that
residents of warmer countries might be operating in a state of heat stress
that whittles away at their snapping point.
 
"Nobody has ever really considered just how important this might be," he
said. "When you become immersed in a conflict situation and you're
unconscious of the fact that you are getting hyperthermic, that's when it
becomes dangerous."
 
Mr. Boyanowsky is continuing his research in this area at Simon Fraser with
plans to test subjects in an environmental chamber. Last fall, he summed up
30 years of research with Violence and Aggression in the Heat of Passion and
in Cold Blood, published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry.
 
He suggests that when the brain is heated, the hypothalamus -- an organ that
regulates the body's temperature -- produces adrenaline that might spark the
side effect of making a person more likely to lash out.
 
"We have to recognize that this is a major regulator of human behaviour with
all kinds of implications for the way we design buildings, neighborhoods,
and even hockey equipment," he said.
 
"Maintaining a cool head is very important," he says. "A lot of your stress
is actually arising from the thermoregulatory conflict. It turns out to be
important."
 
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