via Rick Westhead of TSN,

A U.S. federal judge has denied a request by a group of former National Hockey League players to certify their concussion lawsuit against the league as a class action.

Judge Susan Richard Nelson’s decision comes more than four years after the landmark case against the NHL was first filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

Had Judge Nelson decided to approve the case as a class action, some 5,000 former NHL players would have automatically become plaintiffs, hiking the stakes for the NHL and raising the league’s potential financial liability.

Now the roughly 300 former players who have either filed a lawsuit against the NHL or retained lawyers to do so will have to argue their claims individually