Nearly half of all people who visit the emergency room after an ice hockey injury are teenagers, suggesting that efforts to prevent these injuries should focus on this age group, new research released Monday indicates.

Younger players are also more likely to develop head injuries, while people aged 18 or older suffered a higher percentage of cuts.

Although there are many variables that contribute to sports injuries, “enforcement of existing rules to avoid illegal checking, full facial protection, and force-dissipating ring boards are good examples of extra efforts to reduce injury risk in the sport of ice hockey,” study author Dr. Huiyan Xiang of Ohio State University in Columbus told Reuters Health.

He added that although most of the injuries were in teen players, it’s not clear how many teens and adults play hockey, making it impossible to say whether the high number of teen injuries is simply due to the fact that there are more teen players.

“On the other hand, more aggressive behaviors on the ice and less body control skills may the reason for the greatest number of overall injuries among adolescents,” Xiang noted.

Currently, more than 500,000 Americans are registered ice hockey players, according to his groups article in the medical journal Pediatrics.

Research shows that hockey players may skate at up to 30 miles per hour, and pucks - often compared to bullets - may fly through the air at 100 miles per hour.

The most common injuries that result from ice hockey include strains, sprains, lacerations and contusions. However, no study has ever investigated the rate of different injuries among players of different ages across the U.S.

In response, Xiang and his colleagues reviewed data collected from 98 emergency rooms between 2001 and 2002.

Almost 33,000 people visited the emergency room after an ice hockey injury. However, only around 1 percent of people under the age of 18, and even fewer older players, had to hospitalized as a result of their injuries.

Nine out of 10 injured players were male.

Patient records did not indicate whether players were injured during checking. However, the authors note that most leagues permit checking.

The rate of injury from playing ice hockey tended to “peak” in people ages 12 to 17, Xiang’s team reports. Indeed, people in that age group constituted 47 percent of all injuries.

The younger players were, the more likely they were to develop head injuries. Overall, most injuries in players younger than 18 occurred in the upper extremities, including the shoulder, arm, wrist, hand or finger, while the trunk and face were least likely to be injured in young players.

In players 18 and older, 38 percent of all injuries were lacerations, which constituted a mere 14 percent of the injuries catalogued in players 12 to 17.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, December 6, 2004.