Byers Diagnosed With Stage 3 CTE: ‘NHL Can Do Better’

Lyndon Byers’ family has a message for the NHL.

The wife and family of the longtime Bruins enforcer, who died last July at 61, announced Thursday that Boston University’s CTE Center diagnosed Byers with Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy. His widow Anne Byers told the Concussion & CTE Foundation exactly what she wanted the league to hear:

“The NHL can do better to protect its players’ safety. Athletes deserve to know what head injuries can do so they can make informed decisions about their bodies and work in an environment that supports their health first.”

Boston paid respects when Byers passed last summer:

Anne also walked through the toll Stage 3 CTE took on her husband at the end.

“He was so fun and vibrant but towards the end it got to the point where (he) didn’t want to socialize or even leave the house. He battled severe depression, had episodes of hallucinations, and his struggles with short-term memory loss made it difficult for him to navigate the day on his own. I will do whatever I can to make sure nobody else has to watch their loved one deteriorate like that.”

Dr. Ann McKee, who runs the BU CTE Center, said almost everyone with Stage 3 disease shows cognitive symptoms and roughly half develop dementia. Byers pledged his brain to the UNITE Brain Bank before he passed.

One stat from the release stops you cold: 19 of the 20 former NHL players studied at BU have come back positive for CTE. The list includes Bob Probert, Derek Boogaard, Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull and Ralph Backstrom. Now Byers joins them.

Byers spent 10 NHL seasons from 1983 to 1992, nine of them in Boston. He sits 11th in Bruins franchise history with 959 penalty minutes. After hockey he co-hosted “The Hill-Man Morning Show” on WAAF for 23 years.

Watch his son Will keep the family name in the Bruins community at the alumni MDSC Benefit: