Steve Montador's family to sue NHL over son's death

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The parents of a former Blackhawks player contend that hockey is to blame for their son's death.

Veteran hockey defenseman Steve Montador suffered a number of concussions on the ice. Before he was found dead in his home just shy of three months ago, Montador -who was deeply troubled by depression and loss of memory - asked that his brain undergo post-mortem analysis. Doctors in Toronto performed the autopsy on Tuesday.

Montador played for five NHL teams and the Blackhawks were his last. He was a hard-hitting defenseman who had plenty of fights. He also suffered concussions that interrupted his 10-year professional career.

"It's been a roller coaster - move forward and then two steps back," Montador said in March 2013.

After his death, Montador's brain was examined. The results, according to the Kembril Neuroscience Center showed "widespread presence" of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

"It was affecting his memory very significantly. It was affecting some of his decision making, and it was affecting some of his behaviors and mood issues. He had become depressed," said attorney Bill Gibbs.

Gibbs represents the Montador family, which intends to sue the NHL for wrongful death. On Tuesday, Montador's father said of his son, "He always knew that there might be black eyes, broken bones, and soft tissue injuries, but he never anticipated that playing the game he loved would result in such devastating impairment of his brain function."

"What he didn't know and these other players didn't know was that their essence could be altered. That everything about them could be changing and they wouldn't have the capacity to change that and that's the scary part of this disease," Gibbs said.

Gibbs represents other former hockey players and well as the late Dave Duerson, who took his own life, and like Montador, wanted his brain analyzed after death. A key aim of those suits is to better understand the impact of concussions, and the temptation to bring players back to action too quickly.

"I think what the future of sports holds is that when someone has a concusion that we all will understand that individual needs to sit out until they are recovered," Gibbs said.

Concussions are different and reactions to them vary. Even though concussion awareness from youth sports to the pros is much greater today, setting baselines for recovery time is not easy.

All the lawsuits are at varying points. It'll be a while before the Montador suit is filed against the NHL.