Car accidents and assaults are more common causes of spinal cord injuries in Minnesota, but the injuries due to sports and recreation often garner more public attention. The two people featured in Sunday's story on spinal cord injuries just happened to be injured in recreational activities -- cross country skiing and swimming/diving. And, of course, the impetus for the story was the high-profile injury to Jack Jablonski during a hockey game late last year.

But which sports offer the most risk for spinal cord injuries (which often result when athletes lose balance and crash headfirst)? The Minnesota Department of Health addressed that question earlier this year by reviewing its routine surveillance data on people hospitalized since 1993 for spinal cord injuries.

The department reported 120 sports= or recreation-related spinal cord injuries in that timeframe. It's significant that there has been no discernible increase over time. The numbers rise and fall every year. The low was 2 in 2011 and the high was 12 in 1999. Nearly nine in 10 hospitalized injuries involved males. Half involved athletes of any gender between the ages of 14 and 18. Here is the breakdown by sport:

Football 35 Hockey 21 Wrestling 20 Skiing 19 Baseball/softball 8 Basketball 5 Soccer 3 Cheerleading 3 Diving 2 You can't read too much into the figures. The injury numbers are tiny compared to the number of athletes involved in these sports every year since 1993. And without the total number of participating athletes, you can't really calculate a rate to find out which sport offers the greatest hazard. But the figures do pass the smell test in terms of what you would assume would present the most risk based on the level of physical contact and speed involved in the sports.

Football and hockey each resulted in the same number -- 8 -- of spinal cord injuries to athletes 13 or younger. Skiing resulted in 11 injuries to people 20 and older -- the highest number for that older age group. The data listed one death, which involved a diver.