Air Canada, believed to be one of the National Hockey League‘s largest sponsors, has threatened to walk away from the league if it does not take “immediate action” to reduce blows to the heads of its players.
QMI Agency’s Bruce Garrioch, writing on Canoe.ca’s Slam Sportspage, reported that Denis Vandal, Air Canada’s director of marketing and communications, has written a letter to the league’s six governors and commissioner Gary Bettman to “voice our concern over (Tuesday night’s) incident involving Max Pacioretty and Zdeno Chara at the Bell Centre in Montreal.”
Chara, who plays for the Boston Bruins, checked Montreal’s Pacioretty into a glass partition near the player benches during a game on March 8. The hit knocked him unconscious and fractured a vertebra. Pacioretty was carried off the ice on a stretcher, but later regained consciousness and retained the use of his limbs. Chara was given a five-minute penalty during the game, but was not punished further by the league. Pacioretty has since said he felt Chara targeted his head.
In his letter to the NHL, Vandal reportedly wrote “From a corporate social responsibility standpoint, it is becoming increasingly difficult to associate our brand with sports events which could lead to serious and irresponsible accidents; action must be taken by the NHL before we are encountered with a fatality. Unless the NHL takes immediate action with serious suspension to the players in question to curtail these life-threatening injuries, Air Canada will withdraw its sponsorship of hockey.”
Air Canada is headquartered in Montreal.
The issue is being raised while two other large Canadian brands–Molson and Labatt–are fighting over league beer sponsorship rights. Molson was recently announced as the sponsor to the tune of $375 million, but Labatt is claiming they have legal rights to that position.
