A scary thing happened tonight at HSBC Arena in Buffalo.
The Sabres were playing the Panthers. Midway through the third period, Olli Jokinen of the Panthers fell and his skate accidentally cut Richard Zednik's neck. Zednik was able to make his way to the bench and was taken to hospital, where he had emergency surgery to repair the damage.
Thankfully, it appears as though Zednik is in stable condition. The assistant GM of the team and the assistant trainer will remain in Buffalo as the rest of the team returns to Florida. The Panthers are arranging to have his wife, Jessica, flown to Buffalo.
The accident conjures up memories of when Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk had his neck slashed by a skate in 1989, and all of this happens just one day after a linesman gets his face cut by a skate.
My thoughts and prayers are with Zednik and his family.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Zednik's neck cut with skate.
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8 comments:
Next thing you know they're going to be mandating skate sharpness and penalizing for high-legging.
My thoughts are with him and his wife.
Saw the video on YouTube.
Just terrible. I'm glad to hear he's stable.
Neck guards should be mandatory in the NHL like they are in youth hockey.
I hear ya on the neck guards.
I chose to avoid viewing that YouTube video of today's accident. Last year, I was wasting time on YouTube watching hockey clips and I accidentally found a video of Malarchuk's accident. I was physically sick when I saw what happened, and I was a little queasy today when I heard about Zednik. I could never be an ER doc...
That was horrible too. Plus, everyone was so intent on fighting, he was left there bleeding half to death!
Then seeing the linesman cut on the face the on Saturday (Rangers - Flyers) you have to wonder.
My mom and dad were at the game in Buffalo last night...their first live NHL game ever. They weren't supposed to be back in Erie until late, so I didn't get a chance to talk to them yet.
I remember seeing video of the Malarchuk injury the night it happened on the news and being absolutely mortified...it was one of those things where you weren't sure you saw what you actually thought you saw.
So of course, years and years later, I also came across the clip on YouTube. Clicked on play. Stupid, stupid idea. Didn't get physically sick, but got damn close.
Luckily the cameras on the Zednik injury didn't seem to pick up a lot of blood or anything until he was off the ice. Perhaps that was the conscious decision of the producer or director of the broadcast, or maybe it was just sheer coincidence.
This was so freaky! I am glad Zednick is doing ok, but I feel really bad for Jokinen...
Dabich - yeah, I can't imagine being in Jokinen's shoes. They showed some video this morning of him being interviewed after the game, and some stupid reporter asked him how scary it was for him. Jokinen glared at him and said, "What do you think? What kind of effing question is that?"
He just looked so devastated..you have to really feel for the guy.
It sounded like he even said that they shouldn't have finished the game.
Before the accident, I thought that Jokinen would be traded by the deadline, but I think that there's an even bigger chance now that he'll go elsewhere. He never liked Jacques Martin before, and now that Martin was one of the people who said that they'd finish the game (when he didn't want to)...and who knows, he may need a change of scenery.
You feel bad for Zednik, but you feel just as bad (if not worse) for Jokinen, who will always be thinking that it was his skate that sliced his teammates neck.
Zactly!
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