Due to the their sport's need for constant skating, hockey players tend to have powerful lower-bodies, driving and churning their legs into the ice with each stride. Yet even hockey players aren't immune to knee ailments. The demands of skating, not to mention hockey's high-speed collisions, often lead to serious knee injuries, including ACL tears.
Function
The anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, is one of the four main ligaments connecting the femur to the tibia. The ACL runs diagonally in the knee, providing rotational stability and preventing the tibia, or lower leg, from sliding too far in front of the femur. Hockey, like most sports, requires twisting, cutting and pivoting, placing tremendous stress on the ACL. When the knee suffers excessive trauma or twisting, the ACL ligament can tear, resulting in pain, swelling and loss of mobility.
Causes
Hockey players can suffer ACL tears in a variety of ways. Open-ice collisions or checks into the boards can often bend or twist a knee enough to tear the ligament. However, ACL tears don't require physical contact. Hockey players can tear an ACL simply by cutting too sharply or getting a skate caught in a rut in the ice, leading to an awkward fall and an excessive twisting of the knee. Another player may even stumble and fall into a player's knee, with the unexpected blow buckling the knee joint and tearing the ACL. Goaltenders can suffer ACL tears while over-extending on a save or having players fall on their exposed legs.
Treatment
Hockey players who suffer ACL tears will typically require immediate surgery to rebuild the ruined ligament. Since sutures tend to fail over time, doctors usually don't sew the torn ligament back together, instead opting to graft tendon from the hamstring, quadriceps or even a cadaver to reconstruct an entirely new ACL. Hockey players tend to take between five and seven months to recover from surgical reconstruction and rehabilitate the knee enough to return to game action.
Considerations
While always a serious injury, ACL tears may not spell immediate doom for hockey players, who can sometimes play with the injury due to the gliding nature of skating. Hockey players have been known to brace the injured knee and play out the season before undergoing reconstructive surgery. Of course, playing with a torn ACL does leave the knee open for additional injury, with the lack of stability in the knee leading to an increased risk of other ligament tears and damage to the surrounding cartilage and knee tissue.
References
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; ACL Injury: Does It Require Surgery?
- University of Minnesota Orthopaedics: Sports Medicine Institute - Question
- Sanders Clinic: Sports Injuries & ACL Injury FAQ
- University of Minnesota Orthopaedics: Sports Medicine Clinic - Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries (Isolated)
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