Total Sports Simcoe County Edition, Winter 2016 Winter 2016 Issue | 页面 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. 18 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.