The Impact of Legendary Fights on His Brain: Unveiling the Aftermath

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease that can only be diagnosed after death. It has been frequently diagnosed among former football and hockey players who have experienced repeated head trauma. Boston University’s CTE center is currently conducting a study on living individuals who may be at risk for CTE. One of the participants in this study is Chris “Knuckles” Nilan, a 65-year-old former hockey player. Nilan holds the NHL record for the third-most fights in league history, with 316. In an article for the New York Times, David Waldstein describes a game in 1980 when Nilan faced off against “two of the most feared pugilists in the league … hockey’s equivalent of boxing Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson within an hour of one another.” Despite struggling with addiction and violence after retiring from his 13-year career, Nilan did not attribute these issues to his time in the sport.

Participating in the study involved undergoing cognitive, neurological, and medical tests annually, as well as agreeing to donate his brain upon his death. Nilan recently received the results from the spring tests, and they were surprising: his test results were normal or even above average. This makes Nilan an invaluable participant in the study as researchers are interested in understanding why he has not yet shown signs of degenerative neurological disease. They want to know if it’s due to his genetics, medical history, the type of head impacts he experienced, his lifestyle, or other factors. As beautifully put by Waldstein, “In some ways, Nilan’s contribution to the study was an opportunity to do in retirement what he loved most as a player, defending teammates.” (Read the full story, which also touches on Nilan’s former father-in-law, Whitey Bulger.)