What Is Injury in Ice Hockey: An Integrative Literature Review on Injury Rates, Injury Definition, and Athlete Exposure in Men’s Elite Ice Hockey

Injuries in men’s elite ice hockey have been studied over the past 40 years, however, there is a lack of consensus on definitions of both injury and athlete exposure. These inconsistencies compromise the reliability and comparability of the research. While many individual studies report injury rates in ice hockey, we are not aware of any literature reviews that have evaluated the definitions of injury and athlete exposure in men’s elite ice hockey. The purpose of this integrative review was to investigate the literature on hockey musculoskeletal injury to determine injury rates and synthesize information about the definitions of injury and athlete exposure. Injury rates varied from 13.8/1000 game athlete exposures to 121/1000 athlete exposures as measured by player-game hours. The majority of variability between studies is explained by differences in the definitions of both injury and athlete exposure. We were unable to find a consensus injury definition in elite ice hockey. In addition, we were unable to observe a consistent athlete exposure metric. We recommend that a consistent injury definition be adopted to evaluate injury risk in elite ice hockey. We recommend that injuries should be defined by a strict list that includes facial lacerations, dental injuries, and fractures. We also recommend that athlete exposure should be quantified using player-game hours.