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Thursday, September 10, 2026

More injuries following the policy change of body-checking in women’s ice hockey – but the players are positive about the change

Lund University

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Amanda Lahti
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Credit: Ingemar Hultquist, Lund University

Four years after body-checking was introduced, have injury rates in Swedish women’s ice hockey changed? Yes, markedly. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now been able to show that, in the short term, the number of insurance claims almost doubled.

In 2022, body-checking became permissible in the SDHL, the top-flight Swedish women’s ice hockey league. Sweden was thus the first country in the world to make this change, and the research is being followed with great interest by other ice hockey nations. Both the US and Canada have also recently started to allow body-checking and are keen to know what impact the change has had in Sweden. There are now two recent research studies from Lund University.

One of the studies is based on insurance data covering six seasons, in which all ice hockey-related injuries that led to a claim under the players’ licence insurance were recorded by the insurance company. During the first season after body-checking was introduced, the number of reported injuries soared. Having stood at 6.6 injuries per 1,000 player-hours in the season before the rule change, the figure rose to 16.7 injuries per 1,000 player-hours the following season. The number of injuries then fell slightly, but the average for the six seasons studied was 11. The average for the corresponding period before the rule change was 6.0.

“Injury rates may continue to fall as players adapt to the physical nature of play, but that remains to be seen. It is not possible to say with certainty that the higher injury figures are due to body-checking, but we speculate that this is the case, as everything else remains the same compared with previous seasons,” says Amanda Lahti, a researcher at the Centre for Primary Care Research, Lund University, and the lead author of both studies and the primary investigator (PI) for the research project.

Shoulder and knee injuries were the most common claims handled by the insurance company, which Amanda Lahti speculates may be because players take body-checks against the boards with their arms outstretched. According to her, the fact that the figures are levelling off could possibly be interpreted as the players learning to play a more physical game over time.

The second study identified injuries that resulted in absence from training or matches and were added to an injury register by the medical staff in the league. A total of 46 match-related injuries were recorded. The results show that body-checking is now the most frequent cause of injury and is often associated with concussion, the most common type of injury in the league. The study also showed that players often continued to play in the games despite being injured. In six out of ten cases of concussion, the player remained on the ice. Most of the injuries, including concussions, occurred in the third period, towards the end of the game. This could suggest that fatigue increases the risk of injury.

“Perhaps it’s not just a case of tiredness after a tough match. As female ice hockey players generally earn less than their male counterparts, many combine elite sport with paid work, which can limit their recovery and contribute to increased fatigue. I would like to go on and gain a deeper understanding of how sleep and recovery might affect the risk of injury,” says Amanda Lahti.

She emphasises that the study tracked the development of injuries over only two years and is based on a relatively small number of injury incidents, which means that the results should be interpreted with some caution. Nevertheless, the findings raise questions and form the basis for further research. Female athletes should not be regarded as “little men”. Biological, anatomical and social differences influence the risk of sports injuries. Yet only a small proportion of sports medicine research is carried out on women.

“This makes women-specific studies essential. Although this study has its limitations, it provides important insights and baseline data for the continued monitoring of the cohort and the progression of injuries over time,” says Amanda Lahti. As a specialist in general medicine and a sports doctor, she works on the prevention of injuries on a daily basis.

The results also show that the players themselves remain positive about body-checking – and that they do not believe it leads to more injuries.

“I will be examining this discrepancy between the players’ own perceptions and our objective injury data in more detail in a forthcoming paper. Amongst other things, I have sought the help of a gender researcher from the IOC (International Olympic Committee) to gain a better understanding of this,” says Amanda Lahti.

Hopefully, at least some of her questions will eventually be answered. She recently received a grant of SEK 1.2 million from the Dr P Håkansson Foundation.

“This is a very significant grant, which I hope will help generate more knowledge that promotes women’s participation in sport at both recreational and elite levels, as well as contributing to the development of the sport,” says Amanda Lahti.

Journal

European Journal of Sport Science

DOI

10.1002/ejsc.70245

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Epidemiology of Injuries in Elite Female Ice Hockey Players Allowed Body Checking: A Two-Year Prospective Cohort Study

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Study confirms Canada's last epishelf lake is gone for good

Loss of the millennia-old ecosystem shows that even the Arctic's projected last ice refuge is vulnerable to rapid change

University of British Columbia

Bernard Laval and Jérémie Bonneau — image:
Dr. Bernard Laval (right) and Dr. Jérémie Bonneau
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Credit: Jérémie Bonneau

Canada’s last epishelf lake drained into the Arctic Ocean following the 2020 breakup of the Milne Ice Shelf and will not recover, a new study confirms.

Epishelf lakes form when an ice shelf acts as a dam, trapping a layer of freshwater floating above seawater connected to the ocean. The Milne Fiord epishelf lake, located on northern Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, supported freshwater microorganisms near the surface and marine species below.

In July 2020, the Milne Ice Shelf broke apart, losing 45 per cent of its area and removing the barrier that held the freshwater in place.

Drawing on a decade of ocean measurements, satellite imagery, and field observations collected before and after the breakup, researchers from UBC, University of Alberta, Université Laval and Carleton University reconstructed the lake’s disappearance.

Their findings show that the freshwater layer began escaping immediately after the collapse and had mostly vanished by autumn 2020.

"The ice shelf and lake had been thinning for decades, but the 2020 breakup was the last straw. The lake drained within months," said study author Dr. Jérémie Bonneau, a professor of civil and water engineering at Université Laval who conducted part of the research during his PhD at UBC.

The first field measurements collected after the breakup showed that by July 2022, brackish water had fully replaced the lake's distinct freshwater layer. Annual monitoring since then has found no sign of recovery.

"Epishelf lakes can signal when an ice shelf is under stress, and that's what we saw here," said co-author Dr. Bernard Laval, a professor of civil engineering at UBC who leads its environmental fluid mechanics research group. "The data showed the ice shelf was failing. Once the ice is gone, the ecosystem goes with it. There's no coming back."

“Epishelf lakes are remarkable because a freshwater ecosystem sits directly above a marine one, separated only by a thin boundary between fresh water and salt water,” said co-author Dr. Andrew Hamilton, a research scientist at the University of Alberta who completed his PhD research at Milne Fiord. “When the ice shelf broke apart, that unique ecological structure disappeared.”

Dr. Derek Mueller, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Carleton University, established the research program that tracked the ice shelf and lake through years of accelerating change.

"There are much easier places to conduct research, but understanding change in the High Arctic requires returning year after year," said Dr. Mueller. "When we began this work, we knew the ice shelf and epishelf lake were vulnerable and designed this project to monitor the transition of the fiord from one with an epishelf lake and an ice shelf to one that is seasonally ice-free. We anticipate further profound changes in the coming years."

The research team included co-authors Silas Pijamini and Joseph Shoapik from Ausuittuq (Grise Fiord), who have participated in fieldwork since 2022.

A decade of data captures the loss

Published in Scientific Reports, the study provides the first complete reconstruction of the lake's drainage and its transformation from a freshwater ecosystem into a marine environment.

Researchers analyzed data from instruments anchored in Milne Fiord, along with annual water profiles, satellite imagery and field observations. Instruments left in place during the COVID-cancelled 2020 field season recorded the lake’s rapid salinization, though researchers could not retrieve the data until two years later.

The study found that freshwater entering Milne Fiord is now flushed directly into the ocean because the remaining ice shelf can no longer contain it. Re-establishing the lake would require the ice shelf to recover, which is not possible under the current climate trajectory.

Loss reaches the Last Ice Area

The Milne Ice Shelf lies within the Last Ice Area, a region expected to retain perennial sea ice longer than anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. It is also within the Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area, whose name means "the place where the ice never melts" in Inuktitut.

The loss of the lake shows that even this potential refuge for ice-dependent ecosystems is undergoing rapid change.

"These systems took thousands of years to form and were lost in months," said Dr. Bonneau. "On any human timescale, they are not coming back."

Interview languages: English (Bonneau, Hamilton, Laval, Mueller), French (Bonneau, Laval)

Photo gallery of the research available for media use, with credits: https://wirl.carleton.ca/photo-gallery/

For more information on the loss of Arctic ice shelves in Summer 2020, visit https://wirl.carleton.ca/research/ice/ice-shelves/calving-2020/

SIDEBAR:

Science at the edge of the ice

Reaching Milne Fiord takes the better part of a week in a good year.

From Vancouver or Quebec City, researchers take multiple flights — to Ottawa, Iqaluit and then Resolute Bay via Arctic Bay. In Resolute, the team spends several days at the federal Polar Continental Shelf Program base, preparing equipment and weighing every load.

“The Twin Otter can carry only about 1,000 kilos,” said Dr. Jérémie Bonneau. “Everything has to be weighed and balanced before we go.”

From Resolute, the team flies to Eureka to refuel before continuing to Purple Valley near Milne Fiord.

“I’ve been delayed for 12 days because of poor weather,” said Dr. Bonneau. “You need to plan for about a month. The actual work, when conditions allow, may be only five or six days.”

Fieldwork takes place in July, when snowmelt allows aircraft with wheels to land. Researchers can travel about 10 kilometres from camp on foot, while helicopters connect them with instruments across the wider study area. Low cloud and poor visibility, however, can prevent flying about half the time.

The research program has brought scientists back to Milne Fiord for nearly two decades, building the long-term record that allowed the team to reconstruct the lake’s disappearance.

The team collects measurements using sensor tubes about the size of a thermos. The instruments record temperature, depth and conductivity, which researchers use to determine the water’s salt content.

The researchers also maintain a long-term mooring: a set of instruments anchored to the seafloor and held upright by buoys, recording conditions throughout the Arctic winter. Each summer, the team hauls the equipment up through the ice, downloads the data, replaces its batteries and redeploys it.

Those instruments remained in place during the COVID-cancelled 2020 field season and recorded the lake’s drainage, which no researchers were there to witness.

“We saw the breakup in satellite images, and two years later we got the data,” said Dr. Laval. “The instruments were there, observing. We just couldn’t reach them.”

Bernard Laval retrieving a mooring in a Milne Ice Shelf pond.

Credit

Photo Credit: Bella

Silas Pijamini checking the ice before taking measurements of the water beneath it.

Credit

Photo Credit: Bella Mouchet