While the NFL and NHL have brought mass awareness to concussions, the YWCA is reminding people that it’s actually women, and not pro athletes, who are disproportionally affected as as resulting of being targeted with violence in the home.

New work from the YWCA Metro Vancouver and agency Rethink is called “Concussion Story” and stars former Vancouver Canucks star Trevor Linden, telling “his” story of getting a concussion and the effects it has had on his life, before the surprise reveal that it’s actually the story of a woman assaulted by her partner.

The spot is informed by YWCA calculations that for every NHL concussion, it’s estimated more than 7,000 women in Canada suffer the same injury. Concussions are also the leading cause of brain injury in Canada and a historically taboo topic that go unreported, under-reported and untreated.

“When we came across this stat…we thought, what better way to raise awareness on this really important issue than to have someone like Trevor, who is a household name, a hero and legend, deliver that message,” says Amy Juschka, director of communications and advocacy at YWCA Metro Vancouver.

The YWCA has worked on gender-based violence for many years, but had never made the connection between how athletes have popularized and brought attention to the issue of concussive brain injuries.

The subversion messaging, however, is something that the organization has explored before with great effectiveness, Juschka explains. YWCA Metro Vancouver positioned construction noise as a good thing, offering apologies during the building of its YWCA Hotel and Residence non-profit hotel. Also, in its award-winning “Add the M” campaign, agency Rethink added the letter “M” for “male” to popular sports leagues like the NHL and NBA, to show how women’s leagues like the WNBA get short shrift with the underlying assumption all popular sports are for men.

This campaign was timed to coincide with Victims and Survivors of Crime Week between now and May 20, but also with the NHL playoffs to make the direct comparison to the country’s most popular sport, where these kinds of injuries are much more high profile. The majority of research on the impact of concussions has focused on men, which experts have attributed to a mix of historical sexism within medicine, as well primarily looking to male athletes as subjects.

“Raising awareness with the broader public is the first step,” Juschka says. “It is not being researched enough.”

For campaigns like this, Juschka explains, earned media has proven very effective, but the campaign will also be running in English and French on TV and social, with donated screentime from CBC and Sportsnet.