from Rick Westhead of TSN,

The National Hockey League concussion lawsuit is finally coming to a head.

More than four years after the landmark case against the NHL was first filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, lawyers for the league and a group of disgruntled former players face off in court Friday to argue over whether the litigation should proceed as a class action.

If judge Susan Nelson decides to approve the case as a class action – a decision that might not come for many months – some 5,000 former NHL players would automatically become plaintiffs, hiking the stakes for the NHL and raising the league’s potential financial liability.

For the players, a loss would mean that the roughly 300 former players who have either filed a lawsuit against the NHL or retained lawyers to do so would have to argue their claims individually.

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