Total Sports Simcoe County Edition, Winter 2016 Winter 2016 Issue | Page 18

Protecting Your Noggin’
By: KC Reynolds, Photo credit Laura Bainborough
Know someone who refuses to wear a helmet or any
sort of head protection because of vanity? How about
someone who has injured their head or received a
concussion? Ice Halo to the rescue
Barbara Armstrong is the creator of a fashionable and
practical line of head gear that is now being sold all over
the world, called the Ice Halo, and it all started because
she fell and hurt herself in 2007.
She took lessons, bought the proper equipment and was
ready to start playing. At her very first game, she made
it through the first end and part way through the second
and that was it. She doesn’t remember the rest.
She was helped off the ice and even though she told
everyone she was fine, she really wasn’t. She was
nauseated, her head was pounding, and her vision
was badly off but her fear of hospitals meant lying to
everyone including her family.
Barbara was in denial and over the next 24 to 36
hours, she experienced increasingly severe symptoms
including the worst motion sickness she has ever had,
no balance, and Photopopsia; where bright lights hurt
the eyes. After finally agreeing to go to the hospital, she
was accessed with a secondary concussion.
Concussions compound themselves – with every
concussion the risk of more serious brain damage
increases. This was her second serious concussion,
having fractured her skull in a car accident when she
was 18.
After a few weeks, she wanted to go back to curling but
her husband insisted that she wear a helmet. Like so
many people, she felt stupid wearing one but knew she
had to have some sort of protection. Out of necessity,
and the inside foam padding of a life preserver, the first
Ice Halo was born.
A Special Olympics coach saw her wearing it and
inquired where she bought it. After finding out she had
made it herself, the coach ordered 12 and asked her to
make six more for a store in Barrie called the Shot Rock
Shop. This was Ice Halo’s first sale with many more
to come.

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Totalsportsalliance.com

Fast forward to today where Ice Halo offers a variety
of products, colours, styles, and foam densities to
help reduce the impact in sports like curling, and their
high-density head band that a lot of skaters wear uses
a thicker version of the same padding used in a hockey
helmet.
Barbara is a member of the ASTM Worldwide Standards
Sub-committee working on creating a standard for
protective head gear where there currently isn’t one.
All of the Ice Halo products with front, side, and back
head protection exceed standards currently in place
for the CSA.
Today, Ice Halo not only sells products to curlers
and skaters, but also to day cares, senior citizens,
and people with epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
Concussions change peoples’ lives and the Ice Halo
has given them the confidence to go back out and do
what they love. Protective headbands, toques, ball caps,
and a snowboarder hat, along with a wide-rimmed
summer hat and the Halo HD, a high density protective
headband, are all available through retailers and online.
Before the Ice Halo, Barbara was a freelance writer and
photographer and had to learn all aspects of business.
Both her knowledge and the company have grown
increasingly over the years. All aspects of the Ice Halo
business are handled in Barrie.
We’re not happy that Barbara hit her head, nor that
she’s still suffering from the damaged caused by that
concussion, but we are glad that she decided to do
something about it.
For more information, please visit their web site at
www.icehalo.com.