My name is Jessie Pettinger. I am one of the coaches on the Nipigon Elks Jr B staff this season, but I am also in my 4th year of university at Lakehead. 

During my 4th year at Lakehead, I and two other students are conducting a research project examining the long-term effects of concussion. Through the use of an EEG machine, we will be measuring the brain waves of participants ages 18-25 years old who have or have not suffered a concussion within the last 5 years. We hope to see a difference between the two groups and their brain waves in hopes of discovering more about possible long-term effects concussions pose on the brain. If players or anyone else who is eligible is interested in participating, I can give them more information through our participant information letter. Still, they would have to contact me first to get further details. The data collection portion of the study will take about an hour. Still, it can be done at any time throughout the week, most likely in the Lakehead Kinesiology department on campus, and that will be discussed in more detail with possible participants. 

To conduct the study, we need participants, and I would like to know if you could send our recruitment poster to the teams to be shared along with my contact email. (listed at the bottom). Additionally, posting it on the LJHL social media account to see if anyone outside of the teams would be interested if they are found to be eligible to participate would be greatly appreciated. 

After playing and working in hockey for over a decade, I know the impact concussions can have on past and present players, which is why this topic interests me and my group. Furthermore, in the next two years, I plan to use what we discovered from this study for my master's program research project at Lakehead and build on it to learn more about the long-term effects concussions can have on individuals. I hope that participants in this study will be able to participate again in the future, and building those connections within the hockey community would help exponentially with that. 

Please let me know if you have further questions or want more information. I would be happy to answer them! 

Kind regards, 

Jessie Pettinger 

jkpettin@lakeheadu.ca