For the second year in a row, the Competition Bureau has deemed a hockey equipment manufacturer’s claims about the safety features of its products to be offside.
The Competition Bureau announced that Reebok-CCM has agreed to stop making certain claims about its CCM Resistance hockey helmet and pledged to make a $475,000 donation of sports equipment after an investigation revealed that its claims were not adequately supported.
In its ruling, the Competition Bureau said that ads for the helmet contained words, images and videos that created the impression it was capable of protecting players from head injuries such as concussions.
While Reebok-CCM had tested the Resistance helmet prior to making the claims, the Competition Bureau concluded that the testing was “not adequate and proper” to support the company’s claims.
Phil Norris, senior advisor with the Competition Bureau, said that Reebok-CCM cooperated with the investigation. “When possible, the Bureau prefers to resolve matters without the use of costly litigation,” said Norris.
He said Commissioner of Competition John Pecman “recognizes the fact that Reebok-CCM is committed to investing in innovative technology and new and better products relating to the hockey helmet segment. Even though the testing conducted by Reebok-CCM was not adequate and proper to support their claims, their efforts to advance helmet design were seen as positive.”
In addition to the donation to sports organizations, Reebok-CCM has agreed to remove or modify the remaining claims from all marketing material, including packaging and online advertising. It will also pay $30,000 towards the cost of the Competition Bureau’s investigation.
Hockey Canada has said that while helmets are important and very effective against localized head injuries such as skull fractures, they offer “limited effectiveness” against concussions.
This is the second straight year in which the Competition Bureau has weighed in on hockey helmet safety. In November 2014, Bauer Hockey Corp. agreed to stop running ads making performance claims related to its RE-AKT helmet.
“In recent years, there has been increased public concern about concussions in sports,” said Norris. “As a result, the Bureau undertook to review this matter as well as the previous Bauer case dealing with the same issues that was resolved by a consent agreement in November 2014.”
In a recent test of 37 hockey helmets by Virginia Tech’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, only seven received a one-star (marginal) or two-star (adequate) rating, while one – the Warrior Krown 360 – was deemed “good.” A total of 13 helmets were “not recommended.”
In a research paper published last year, the university concluded that the current helmet safety standards for hockey helmets have “changed little” over the past 50 years.
The CCM Resistance web site says that the helmet is the product of combined scientific research with the University of Ottawa and that it carries a “Rotational Energy Dampening (R.E.D.) System that better manages rotational impacts. “Combining the R.E.D. System with a series of interior pods, the CCM Resistance helmet has a liner engineering through cutting-edge science,” says the site.
Reebok-CCM did not respond to interview requests, but a company representative told The Globe and Mail recently that he did not believe that its advertising was directly related to concussions.
