Heard about these on the radio a few months back, and now today I got an email about a company wanting to buy ad space on the site. Thoughts on these? Will you buy one for your kids?

https://www.theshockbox.com/products/

Yeah, they are from the Ottawa area and got some funding from a TV show called "Dragon's Den". I think it's a great idea and is easily transitional to other sports like lacrosse and football. Neither of my girls are playing hockey or contact sports but heck I might need one!

Just noticed the Ad banner - nice work!

I'm seriously considering buying one for both of my boys, youngest will be a mite for 3 more years, the older one is in his last year of mites. This weekend, a teammate of the older one suffered a concussion. We played in a 3x3 tourney Sat and he got hit pretty hard but got back up and didn't show any visible signs. On Sun they had a league game and he was involved in another horrible looking collision. Again, he got up, came back to the bench and we checked him out, no visible signs. I should mention one of our assistant coaches is a RN, and all of us are very aware of the seriousness of concussions. But from everything we could tell, he was okay, and he wasn't complaining about anything, he was smiling and wanted to get back out there. Come Monday morning he was sick and had a terrible headache. Now he can't play the sport he loves for a few weeks.

This is B mite hockey, little 7-8 year olds and no checking. They are still learning to control their bodies, on and off the ice. But these kids can get flying around and collide with each other pretty hard. It's possible the initial damage was done on Sat and this kid played again on Sun when potentially even more damage was done. With something like this product, the guesswork could have been eliminated and maybe the kid sees a doctor Sat night and the concussion is identified. Who knows.

The Fundraiser Director for our youth association is in contact with the manufacturer about setting up a program where a portion of the purchase proceeds go back to the association. Initial information sounds like it would be something where they come in and do some kind of seminar or something, give the sales pitch and any purchases made would have a portion go back to the association.

If anyone is interested, I can pass along more info when I here the details in case any other associations would be interested in something like this.

So I ended up getting two of these for my son - one for hockey and one for football. Obviously football doesn't start for another 5 months, but he's worn his hockey one a few times. So far it's been great. Last night at tryouts, he caught an edge after skating the length of the rink (right at the beginning...smooth ice) and went crashing into the boards. My wife held her breath, but he got up and my phone didn't go off. And actually, the only time it has gone off is when he slammed his helmet into his bag after practice last week. But just having the peace of mind to know when a more thorough assessment should be done was worth it for me. It's likely not a perfect product, being a first generation unit, but it beats nothing at all. I'm looking forward to this industry as a whole getting smarter, cheaper, and more widely accepted.