Wash Safe Canada – Blog

Study digs deep for all the gory details

Colette Derworiz
Calgary Herald Saturday, January 18, 2003

For all of the moms and dads who have ever wondered what may be growing in those stinky, sweaty hockey bags, we have all of the dirty details.
The Biotechnology Training Centre at the University of Calgary swabbed 10 items in a recently used hockey bag of a 20-year-old male.
Among the samples taken were the helmet, skates, shin pads, gloves, chest protector and the cup.
“That was vile,” Duncan MacCannell, a U of C graduate student in microbiology and infectious diseases, said soon after taking the swabs.
He and Vicky Lau, a first-year university student who has worked at the lab for two years, were in charge of the project for the Herald as part of Esso Minor Hockey Week.
The severity of what bacteria could do hit home at the end of December, when Mikael Renberg of the Toronto Maple Leafs cut his hand while lacing up his skates.  An infection caused his hand to swell like a boxing glove, and led to talk of amputation and even death.
Fortunately for Renberg, his hand was spared.
But Leafs coach, Pat Quinn, suggested at the time the team needed to get its equipment tested since a similar ailment forced goalie Ed Belfour to miss four games last October.
In Calgary, where thousands of hockey players haul the stinky bags to and from the rink each day, parents shudder to think what is growing on their children’s equipment.
“It’s pretty nasty,” said hockey mom Lori Weisensel.
She said her 11-year-old son now showers immediately after games and hangs his equipment to dry that evening.
“The moms of the team have been approached by the people who clean the equipment and the dads think that is just funny,” Weisensel said.  “They are like, ‘Oh, please, this is a hockey team.  It isn’t ballet.’”
Well, don’t get too smug, all of you disparaging dads.
The hockey equipment tested for the Herald grew samples of both yeast and bacteria.
Lab manager Wendy Hutchins said the equipment should be aired out after every game (bacteria thrives in dark and moist conditions) and could use a good cleaning before being stored away for the summer.
But, she added, parents shouldn’t sweat it.
“None of it is really anything to worry about, although every mother is going to have a bird,” she said.
“This is the usual cloud of stuff we live in every day.”
Hutchins, who has a doctorate in medical sciences, said all of the bacteria found is normal on our skin or in our mouths in much lower concentrations.
For example, most of the samples contained staphylococcus epidermidis, a common member of the normal florae of skin and mucous membranes.
Researchers found staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can sometimes get into the body and cause infections, on the helmet.  The infection caused by the bacteria can be as minor as pimples, boils and other skin conditions or more serious blood infections and pneumonia.
“I doubt he is sweating that bug,” Hutchins said, nothing there could have been small amounts in the player’s nose. “But if he were a surgeon in a hospital, a nurse would have a swab up his nose so fast.”
The shin pads produced a puzzling result – streptococcus viridans, an organism most abundant in the mouth – for the team of researches.
“If someone spit somewhere and he touched it with his shin pad, he might pick it up,” said Hutchins.
“It shows how bacteria gets around.”
Her main piece of advice to young hockey players: “Wash your hands.”
The 20-year-old hockey player who let the Herald use his equipment for the experiment did impress the U of C researchers on more than one front.
Hutchins said she expected to find more staphylococcus epidermidis on his gloves.
“That is a reflection of the fact that he washes his hands,” she said “so he’s a good little hockey player.”
His skates were clean, producing neither bacteria nor mould, leading Hutchins to conclude “he may be one of those people who sprinkles stuff in his skates.”
And, for MacCannell, whose regular research includes examining stool samples, the results were no as bad as the smell suggested.
“There is nothing dangerous in the worst-smelling hockey bag.” he said, with a hint of surprise in his voice.  “The bugs weren’t that gross but the bag was vile.”
He said, however, that the smell was among the worst he’s experienced.
“It’s up there,” MacCannell said.  “It’s climbing the charts, definitely in the top 10.  It came off the bag in a wave.”