For Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby, this season has been one of dashed hopes, dark and quiet rooms, and desperate attempts to recover with unproven and unorthodox medical treatments.

Crosby has missed much of the year with concussion-related maladies and it’s unclear when he’ll return to the lineup.

But the Penguins have been able to take a small measure of solace in the fact they haven’t had to pay Crosby much of his team-high $9 million salary. Pittsburgh has an insurance policy in place that covers Crosby’s absence when he’s injured and out of the lineup for more than 30 games.

That security blanket is poised to disappear.

Insurance companies specializing in sports say the Penguins and other NHL teams will increasingly have to adopt the risk of million-dollar contracts alone as the number of players sidelined with concussions swells. The prospect threatens to alter the hockey industry.

For players who have suffered serious concussions — there are at least 73 players who have missed games this season with brain injuries, according to player agent Allan Walsh — new contracts will include so-called concussion exclusions.

That will mean teams won’t be able to insure those players against future brain injuries.

Bill Hubbard, chief executive of HCC Specialty, a New York-based company that also specializes in the sports industry and has insured hockey players, says it could lead to an even more troubling development for the NHL.

If more players continue to be sidelined with concussions, insurers may stop insuring players with brain injuries altogether.

“Right now you’ve got 10 per cent of the league affected by concussions,” Hubbard said. “While I don’t know where the breaking point is, at some point, if it keeps trending this way, companies are not going to be able to insure NHL players for concussions.”

Many teams could be driven into financial ruin if one or more of their top players are sidelined indefinitely and don’t have insurance, Walsh said.

“The entire framework of the NHL is in jeopardy,” he said. “There’s a risk of bringing the house down. And it’s so troubling because no one really knows what to do with concussions. There are so many theories.”

Last week, Toronto-based Sutton Special Risk, which provides off-ice insurance to more than 400 NHL players, rewrote its insurance application form to devote more scrutiny to concussions.

“We used to have one question asking players their history with cardiac issues and other problems like concussions,” said Greg Sutton, the company’s president.

“Now, concussions have their own section. We’re asking about frequency, how bad they were and how many games they missed. We know you’re not recovered from brain injuries because the symptoms go away. This is not an organ like the liver that can regenerate itself.

“You’re going to see a lot more contracts with concussion exclusions. It’s a big risk. Teams are going to have more exposure related to concussions that they’re going to have to eat.”

It’s already getting more expensive to insure players.

The NHL requires teams to insure roughly 80 per cent of the value of their top five player contracts through BWD Group, a New York insurance company. Rates have more than doubled from about 2 per cent in 2004 to more than 5 per cent of a contract’s value, Hubbard and others said.

That means it can cost a team about $250,000 to insure a player — one with a blemish-free medical history — with a $5 million contract.

“The disability insurance marketplace absolutely has an impact on what clubs and players are willing or able to agree to in terms of contract structure and length,” said NHL spokesman Gary Meagher. “It’s been the reality for quite some time now. I can’t say it’s a league concern at this point in time.”

Several league sources said Meagher’s comment belies their worries.

Consider the Penguins’ quandary with Crosby.

He has one year left on a contract that will pay him roughly $7.5 million. If he manages to recover and return to the ice, he’ll be in line for a new long-term contract paying him at least $10 million a year.

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But no insurance company is likely to insure his contract against concussions.

That means if Crosby is sidelined with yet another brain injury, the Penguins, who now make a modest profit, would be obliged to pay off his entire contract.

“I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes,” said Dan DiPofi, the Buffalo Sabres’ former chief operating officer. “Signing him to a multi-year contract, they’ll be on the hook for the whole thing. Maybe they’ll convince him to agree to a one-year contract.”

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