The lasting impact of the Zednik incident; more notes

Richard Zednik's teammates were shaken and not focused on hockey when play resumed -- a potentially dangerous situation. AP

Anyone who has spent more than a moment around pro hockey knows there are givens to the game: Players are tough. They play to win. And in addition to the intrinsically beautiful things like skating, passing, speed and high-action plays that lift a fan right off a seat, there are inherent dangers.

One of them, to borrow a line from moviedom, is: There Will be Blood.

The spilling of it always has been; and likely always will be, a part of the game. But when is enough enough? Or in the case of Florida Panthers forward Richard Zednik, when is it too much? The lasting and perhaps eternally lingering question in Zednik's case is simple to state, but difficult to answer: Was it right to play the game to its conclusion?

Zednik suffered a horrific, life-threatening injury on Sunday when he was cut by the skate of teammate Olli Jokinen, lacerating his carotid artery, the main one that carries blood to the brain. Zednik reflexively grabbed his throat and skated to the bench, into the arms of trainers, teammates and doctors, all of whom played a role in saving his life. The trail of blood that stained the ice stood out like some otherworldly beacon. It was impossible to overlook or, given the depth to which it penetrated the ice, remove. Players had to skate over it. Fans, at least the ones who didn't immediately leave the building, had no choice but to try and look past it. An impossible task for even the most jaded.

Jokinen is on record (he used no uncertain language) that the game should not have continued and that he wanted only to go with his teammate to the hospital. Others on both teams expressed similar sentiments. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff made it clear he would have been fine with a decision to cancel or suspend play, noting that the players weren't particularly interested in resumng, but they had to do it.

The NHL just happened to have Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell on hand to see his son play for the Panthers. He consulted with management from both teams and, it's said, other league officials and even Commissioner Gary Bettman. The consensus was that the game should resume since Zednik was said to be stable en route to the hospital (a better description at the moment would have been that he was being stabilized to the best ability of doctors at the scene). Given that the two teams won't meet again during the regular season, tacking the remaining time on to a future game was not possible. The decision was understandable.

But was it right?

Jokinen had been involved in a traumatic incident not unlike the kind that trained first-responders or police face at the scene of a horrific accident or bloody crime. Even veteran officers who have been hardened by prior experience will tell you there are some things you just aren't prepared to see. In some cases, the impact is so devastating that it can never be forgotten. Imagine what it must have been like for the players, coaches and fans in Buffalo.

Players were fixated on what happened and how it could have just as easily happened to them. Did they benefit from the decision to play on? Where they and the fans harmed by it? No one can say for certain, but nearly 20 years ago in Buffalo, Sabres goaltender Clint Malarchuk suffered a similar incident and the game went on. Malarchuk still maintains that he came back too soon without enough counseling to come to grips with the incident, and he spoke openly this week about how he still has nightmares in which he sees a giant skate blade rushing toward his neck. He also acknowledges that his career and his life have never been quite the same.

As for the fans, well, one need only look at a photo of their collective faces behind Zednik after his blood started to spurt. The look on one young man's face is beyond description. Malarchuk tells of fans who came up to him years later and said they became physically ill after leaving the arena that night. He says at least three people told him they had relatives who suffered heart problems as a result. I worked in Buffalo during that era and still live there. There isn't a person I know who was in the building that night who doesn't remember every gruesome moment. More than a few have told me that they struggled with going back to Memorial Auditorium for a long time after it happened.

1 of 2