Baumgartner keeping his head in the game

BAUMGARTNERAdvisory role

A dozen athletes, including Ted Johnson, the oft-concussed former Patriots linebacker, have agreed to donate their brains to science.

One active hockey player - Noah Welch - and a Hall of Famer - Pat LaFontaine - have also signed on with the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University; we all know what a critical and complex issue head injuries have been for a number of NHLers. Bruins fans need look no further than Patrice Bergeron, and the blow to the head he sustained last October, to be reminded of the sport's inherent dangers.

Ex-Bruin Ken Baumgartner, named last week by the NHL Players Association to join a new advisory board that will explore myriad hockey-related issues, said Friday that he considers himself "pretty fortunate" to have escaped serious head trauma during his playing career.

"Especially when you consider my role [of enforcer], and the number of games I played," said Baumgartner, who played 696 regular-season games and amassed 2,242 penalty minutes. "I hope I've proven with my [career path] since retiring that I've kept most of my faculties."

Baumgartner, 42, graduated from Harvard Business School in 2002, and after moving to Los Angeles to begin a career in finance, he returned to Boston a few years ago to advance similar professional endeavors. His only connection to the game in recent years has been some light skating during his LA days (celebs Cuba Gooding Jr. and Jerry Bruckheimer often suited up) and, more recently, watching his 14-year-old daughter, Alexa, thrive as a scoring center for the Bedford-based East Coast Wizards.

"The helmets sure have come a long way," said Baumgartner. "The helmets fit better, and the technology is improved. I came to the realization that it's probably not in one's best interest to wear the same helmet for 10 years."

Asked if he in fact wore the same headgear for more than a decade, Baumgartner said, "I was never with the same team long enough to keep the same helmet."

Baumgartner was one of eight appointees to the NHLPA's Advisory Board of Directors. The others are George Cohen, Buzz Hargrove, Steve Larmer, Ron Lloyd, Dan O'Neill, Ron Pink, and Ian Troop. They'll meet at least twice a year, be it in person or by phone, and will be asked to contribute on whatever subjects the NHLPA Executive Board deems necessary. All in all, it's an experienced, well-informed sounding board for a union that only began welcoming this kind of diverse, respected participation when Boston-based attorney Paul Kelly took over its executive directorship just less than a year ago.

"I'm looking forward to it," said Baumgartner. "Hockey was a big part of my life for a very long time, and I'm not sure that quitting it cold turkey is the best way to go about it."

Today's NHL, he said, is "innovative, and has made some advances." Asked what he doesn't like about today's game, he said, "You could argue, regardless of the era, that the intensity displayed [over] 82 games is not the same intensity we see in the playoffs."

To that point, however, there is no easy fix. Cutting back the number of regular-season games, with an aim to bring back some urgency and intensity to the sport, not to mention potentially lower the risk of injury, is routinely scoffed at by owners, managers, and players.

Such a concept is now even harder for all sides to consider with a price tag in the form of a salary cap ($56.7 million for 2008-09) so publicly stapled to the game each year.

The cap figure is directly related to the sport's gross annual revenues, which now stand around some $2.5 billion. Business is strong, despite overall humble TV revenues. Fewer games would equal lower revenues, and in turn, a lower cap figure. Not an appearance, or a reality, anyone connected to the business of hockey would care to face.

He's honed his skill as a skating sharpener
Graeme Townshend's stay in the NHL was brief, including 22 games with the Bruins at the start of the '90s, but the last few years, the former RPI winger has carved out a comfortable niche as a skating coach. The Jamaican-born Townshend, 42, is the new blades boss with the Maple Leafs, fresh off a three-year stint doing the same thing with the Sharks.

Historically, skating is an assumed skill in hockey; if you're playing the game, of course you are an accomplished skater. That assumption, according to Townshend, "makes no sense at all."

"I mean, look at Tom Brady, he can play quarterback, but he has a quarterback coach, right?" said Townshend. "Everyone assumes Tiger Woods can putt. Heck, he's the best golfer in the world. But he's got a putting coach.

"And when you really look at it, there is nothing more unnatural than skating. I'm doing this as a living, and I can tell you, if I'm off my skates for even a couple of weeks, I'm very uncomfortable when I first start back."

Townshend, who grew up in metro Toronto, opted to go to RPI in the '80s because Paul Vincent, the Bay State's longtime skating guru, was the school's skating coach. Vincent, who in recent years tutored Bruins skaters, now is the Blackhawks skating coach. He and Townshend have remained close through the decades and talk almost every day by phone.

"Over the years, I spent time identifying the best skaters I played with," said Townshend. "I wasn't sitting there on the bench, oblivious to what was going on. I was with two great players in Boston - Cam Neely and Ray Bourque - and I studied those guys closely.

"Ray was a tremendous skater, but that wasn't just a natural gift; he really worked at it. The same with Cam. I know for me, I evolved through Paul's coaching, and in Boston, I tried to emulate Cam's skating. For style and effort, he was the one I really looked up to."

Townshend and his wife live year-round in Maine. He and his stepson, Seth Goodson, own and operate a Hollywood Tans tanning salon near the Burlington Mall.

"Kind of ironic, huh?" Townshend said with a chuckle. "Here I am, a black man, running a tanning salon."

The irony, said Townshend, is not lost on longtime friend and new Leafs coach Ron Wilson, who regularly grinds his blades on that very point.

"I just remind him," said Townshend, "that I'm kind of an expert on the subject."

Etc.
Time was right: Hard-rock Bruins sophomore winger Milan Lucic, who could see ample time on a No. 1 or 2 line this season, figures fortuitous timing played a part in his making the varsity last season. "Honestly, if I came into this team as a rookie this year, I'm not sure I would make it," said the humble Looch. "We've picked up [Michael] Ryder, and Krech [David Krejci] made an impact late in the year. Who's to say I would have gotten the same shot?"

Quick thinking: The Kings went into training camp figuring that Jason LaBarbera and Erik Ersberg likely would do a netminding share this season. However, his early showing in camp has put ex-UMass tender Jon Quick in the thick of the battle. Quick, from Hamden, Conn., is an alum of Avon Old Farms, where he went an astounding 52-3 across his junior and senior seasons. The Kings, meanwhile, have yet to get Patrick O'Sullivan, their No. 4 scorer from last year, under a new deal. While he's out, new coach Terry Murray has been force-feeding minutes to a few kids, including former BC Eagle Brian Boyle.

Nicked Lidstrom: Facial and/or eye injuries led Kris Draper and Steve Yzerman to reluctantly adopt the use of visors late in their careers. The latest Red Wing to withstand a big scare is all-world defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, felled last week by a deflected shot that caught him just under the right eyebrow and sent him to the hospital. Outcome: 25 stitches below the eyebrow and, thankfully, no more than an aching head (easy to say when it's not your bell that was rung). "Rolling in no time," said Cup-winning coach Mike Babcock. Had the puck dipped a half-inch lower, it could have been a catastrophic injury, one that could have ended a storied career for Lidstrom, now 38 and the owner of four Cup rings. He has never worn a visor, but it will interesting to see if he is tempted at least to try one in practice this week.

Bogey for Blues: The Blues received confirmation last Tuesday of what they feared, that young stud defenseman Erik Johnson badly ripped up his right knee in a freak accident while golfing. The damage: a torn pair of ligaments. He will be lost for a long stretch, possibly the season. Nearly two weeks ago, while participating in a team bonding outing, his foot got stuck between the accelerator and brake pedals on his golf cart, forcing the knee to stretch and pop. Loose pucks: During NESN's broadcast of the Red Sox playoff-clinching game Tuesday night, Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench got some face time to pitch his new book, "Catch Every Ball." The former backstop likely doesn't know it, but he's a dead ringer for ex-Harvard netminder Joe Bertagna, now the commissioner of Hockey East. Must be something about wearing the mask . . . Separated at birth Part 2: Ex-Bruins VP Nate Greenberg and Mikheil Saakashvili, president of Georgia . . . The dastardly Claude Lemieux, now 43 and out of the NHL since the end of 2002-03, figures he is good for another big-league twirl. "I got the passion back, and I know I can do it," he told the Denver Post. One of the old era's better memories in Boston is of an enraged Cam Neely dragging a turtled Lemieux to the corner boards and ramming his visor-covered kisser into the rear boards. Lemieux's face went directly into the Globe banner, which bestowed upon him a true nose for news . . . Sergei Gonchar could be sidelined six weeks to six months, depending on whether he needs surgery for the dislocated shoulder he suffered last week when drilled by Tampa's David Koci. Tough loss on the blue line for the Penguins. Filling in for Gonchar on power-play point duty: Evgeni Malkin. Guess he'll have to do, right? . . . Groin pulls. Abdominal tears. Ravaged knees. Why all the hurtin'? Obviously, there isn't a single answer, but Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau believes new-age skates could be among the leading culprits. The boots, no longer made of pliable leather, instead are constructed of very stiff, lightweight materials, which offer skaters little in the way of give. When skaters take a hit now, theorizes Carbo, ankles can't bend, leading to collateral damage elsewhere. He could have a point, which warms the heart of those of us who keep a pair of SuperTacks, constructed with kangaroo leather, stored neatly among the woolen socks and mothballs in a cellar trunk . . . Lidstrom was born April 28, 1970, only 12 days before Bobby Orr flew through the air at the Garden after potting the Cup-winner against the Blues . . . Fellow alarmists, take serious note: Ranger franchise goalie Henrik Lundqvist, only 26 years old, needed cortisone shots in each knee last month prior to the start of training camp. King Henrik was drilled by Malkin in Game 4 of the Rangers-Penguins second-round playoff series, which is one of the reasons he required the double dip of cortisone . . . The Devils like the looks of wannabe backliner Anssi Salmela, a Finnish free agent signed in May. As the week closed, though, the Devils staff still openly wondered about Fedor Fedorov's competition level, a question that has dogged Sergei's little brother each time he has tried to launch his career in North America . . . The Coyotes are making no bones about the fact that they're going the muscle route this season. They picked up ex-Senator Brian McGrattan in June, and he'll join fellow Phoenix fists Todd Fedoruk and Dan Carcillo (324 PIMs in only 57 games last season). Among the three hired hands, they have logged 1,609 PIMS in 623 games . . . No predicting what will happen Nov. 4, but right now the Republicans look a whole lot like the WHA in the summer of '79, and the Democrats like the NHL. See hockey fans in Hartford, Winnipeg, and Quebec City for all necessary solace and predictions.

The List
A number of long-in-the-tooth veterans remained in various NHL camps on a tryout basis as of last week:

The Number
40
Chicago coach Denis Savard, he of spin-o-rama fame, figures his Blackhawks, who allowed 231 goals last season, have to trim that total by at least 40. "If we do that," mused Savard, "we'll be graduating."

Speak up
"They gave him every opportunity to cut his own throat, and he never did."
- Scott Gordon, ex-Providence coach, recalling how Patrice Bergeron came to Bruins camp as an 18-year-old in September 2003 and won a job. Now the Islanders coach, Gordon believes Josh Bailey, the ninth pick in June's draft, might have what it takes to make the team at 18.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.