ACL strains or tears. Broken collarbone. Concussions. MCL strains or tears. Muscle strains.

• AC joint (shoulder)
• ACL strains or tears.
• Broken collarbone.
• Concussions.
• MCL strains or tears.
• Muscle strains.
• Shoulder dislocation.

A sports hernia is essentially a weakening of the lower abdominal wall – the muscles and the tendons in the area above the groin.Unlike a typical inlingual hernia that many athletes face, there is no outpouching of the abdomen into the hernia sac, if you will. Rather, it occurs in a place where the abdominal wall is too thin, where the tissue is too thin.

It can be experienced as a pull to the groin, essentially. An athlete who presents with sports hernia often presents with a slow onset of aching, dull pain in the lower abdomen, in the groin. In male athletes into the testicles. This is exacerbated or made worse by bending forward and cutting, as you do in skating.

If an athlete suspects a sports hernia, it’s really important that they seek medical attention. It’s important to rule out any other diagnoses, which may present with similar symptoms. And in terms of therapy, a course of physiotherapy, with stretching and strengthening might be appropriate, as well as the use of compression shorts.

However, in many cases a sports hernia will go on to require surgery. So, a referral to a orthopedic surgeon may be needed.

Presenter: Dr. Larissa Roux, Sports Medicine Physician, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Sports Medicine Physician

Wrist and hand injuries are very common in ice hockey, and sually it's again falling on an outstretched arm to sort of catch your weight, and you end up with what we call in skiing a – skier's thumb - which is a tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in the thumb.

You can also fracture the wrist and sometimes these go unnoticed in an X-ray, and that's why we do repeat X-rays to try and catch those. You have to make sure that you get to a qualifed physiotherapist as soon as you can so we can determine the severity of this and to get you the right equipment perhaps if you need a splint or a wrist guard so that first of all you can function in your day-to-day activities and not reaggravate the injury and also to make sure if we need to immobilize the part in case of a fracture or severe sprain, that that's taken care of as well.

From there the rehab process starts right away and we'll start moving the parts that we can, and we start protect, we protect the parts that we should and make sure that you're on your way to an optimal rehab program.

Presenter: Mr. Behnad Honarbakhsh, Physiotherapist, Vancouver, BC

Now Health Network  Local Practitioners: Physiotherapist

In hockey, the sports mouthguard is an important piece of safety equipment.
Sports mouthguards come in three basic varieties. The first one is called a Type 1, which is the one that you go and get at your sports store. They are stock. They don't fit your teeth. You wear them over your teeth. They don't fit very well. These aren't very good; although, they're very cheap.

The second type of mouthguard, we call a Type 2, or the typical boil-and-bites. You also get this from your sports equipment store. Typically, you would take those, put them in a pot of boiling water, put them in your mouth, and suck on them to try to form them around your teeth.

The most important thing to know about either of these first two types of sports guards is that they're, essentially, ineffective. In most of the studies we've seen, these type of sports guards work only slightly better than no mouthguard at all, which brings me to the third type, and the most important, and the only type that really works well, is a custom-fitted sports mouthguard.
We call them a Type 3. These guards are made out of EVA material, which is an ethylene vinyl acetate. The main thing about these type of sports guards is they're made off an impression of your teeth, which is poured in a stone model.

We, then, laminate two or three layers of this EVA material onto the model to deliver you a custom-fitted, formed mouthguard with at least 3 millimeters of the EVA material to protect the most vulnerable areas.
The main advantages of the custom-fitted mouthguard is that, No. 1, it's gonna give you the best ability to breathe doing your sports activity. No. 2, it's also gonna allow you the best ability to speak during your sports activity. And, No. 3, it's gonna offer you the best comfort level.If you're interested in a custom-fitted sports mouthguard, please, contact your dentist.

Presenter: Dr. Jeffrey Norden, General Dentist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: General Dentist