Five years after NHL veteran Greg Johnson died by suicide, his widow and daughters have released a report that posthumously diagnosed the former Nashville Predators captain with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
The family made the announcement through the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) on Wednesday as a way to alert people to “the long-term effects of concussions and repetitive head impacts in hockey.”
“This diagnosis took my breath away,” Kristin Johnson, Greg Johnson’s wife of 22 years, said in a statement on the CLF website. “Greg’s death shattered our world, and we never once thought this disease was something he struggled with. He experienced very few symptoms that we knew of, but he spoke of his concussions often. I remember the exact moment he told me his heart condition forcing him to retire was a blessing because he couldn’t take another hit. He knew his hockey career had a profound impact on his brain.”
Johnson, who was 48 when he died in 2019, was from Thunder Bay, Ont. He was drafted 33rd overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in 1989 but was traded to the Detroit Red Wings, where he played parts of four seasons. He also played for Pittsburgh and Chicago, before landing in Nashville via the expansion draft, where he would become the franchise’s second team captain. His career ended in 2006 due to a suspected heart issue.
“I had no idea what CTE even stood for when my dad took his life,” said Carson Johnson, Greg Johnson’s oldest daughter, in the same website statement. “Now understanding that the hits he endured throughout his hockey career damaged his brain, I want all athletes to understand the risks and I want the NHL to start acknowledging it exists and do more to protect its players so other daughters don’t have to lose their fathers.”
The Concussion Legacy Foundation cautioned in its release that “suicide is complex and multifactorial, and a post-mortem CTE diagnosis should not be considered as the cause of a suicide. However, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with suicide, independent of CTE. A 2019 study found that a diagnosed concussion doubles the risk of suicide.”
