You know the old joke, right? "I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out!" I guess after this weekend, we might need to update that joke a bit: "I went to a hockey game, and a GOD DAMNED SLASHER FILM BROKE OUT!!!"
Note: All of the videos I'm posting are graphic and bloody to varying degrees (actually, from least to most, coincidentally). The fact that it appears that everyone involved will live to tell the tale is the only reason I'm posting them at all.
First, on Saturday night: linesman Pat Dapuzzo took a skate to the face in the Flyers/Rangers game. Dapuzzo wound up needing at least 20 stitches and a possible broken nose. Meanwhile, immediately after Dapuzzo was struck, a multi-player brawl broke out. Amazingly, Dapuzzo got up and tried to skate over to the scrum to help break things up until he was convinced by the medical staff to skate off and get attention.
So, yeah, it's not just the players who are tough.
Then tonight in Buffalo...during the Panthers' games against the Sabres, Richard Zednik took a skate to the throat from teammate Olli Jokinen, severing his jugular vein. Needless to say, that's even worse than a skate to the face. Zednik somehow skated off the ice and into the arms of medical personnel, where he apparently collapsed in the tunnel on the way to the back. Miraculously, as of right now (10:32 p.m. on Sunday night), Zednik is reported to be a stable condition after surgery and is expected to make a full recovery.
Of course, this had be a horrible flashback to longtime Sabres fans. Back in 1989, Buffalo goaltender Clint Malarchuk had his throat slashed in a game, severing his carotid artery, spilling copious amounts of blood onto the ice. (This is what Sabres play-by-play Rick Jeanneret is referencing in the last video when he says that he's seen someone bleed like that once before, but didn't like discussing it.) Essentially, he was bleeding to death right there in the crease. (The phrase I've heard to describe the incident is "gushes of blood with every heartbeat." The similarities to the Zednik situation tonight are just eerie. Only the quick thinking of the medical personnel saved Malarchuk's life, and he was even able to rejoin the team for the playoffs just a few later.
WARNING: THIS IS 100 TIMES MORE GRAPHIC THAN ANY OF THE OTHER TWO VIDEOS. IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH, DON'T WATCH THIS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Assuming a full recovery for Zednik, the question now becomes: should the game have continued as it did, after a lengthy delay (where they had to bring out a Zamboni to scrape the blood off of the ice). NHL vice-president Colin Campbell (who was in attendance to watch his son play for the Flyers) consulted with the two teams and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, and after word arrived that Zednik was at the hospital and stable, a decision was made to finish the game.
Should they have stopped the game? I don't think anyone would have minded if they did. Knowing that Zednik had been stabilized, I can see where the decision would be made that "OK, things are looking more promising, let's finish the game." Honestly, I have no idea what I would have done. Most bloggers want to have THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER TO EVERY SITUATION, and want to rip any decision they don't like. But there are some situations where there are no "good answers," and I guess the best upshot out of all of this is that the story in the following days is going to be whether or not the game should have been stopped because of a serious injury, and not talking about a player dying on the ice. (And I don't understand how scientists can develop the technology to harness wasted energy from walking to create battery power, as I heard on NPR today, but they can't make a skate that won't slice someone's main arteries on contact.)
And in case you were curious, it apparently takes more than a player almost dying on ice in horrific fashion for the NHL to be the lead story on SportsCenter. The 11 p.m. Pacific edition had the UNC/Clemson and UCLA/Washington basketball games, Daytona 500 qualifying, and then the story on Zednik. But I'm sure that editorial decision had nothing to do with the fact that ESPN are broadcast partners with NCAA basketball and NASCAR, but not with the NHL. In fact, how dare I even bring it up?
