January 29, 2000. Molson Center, Montreal, Quebec. The Philadelphia Flyers were in town to play the Canadiens in a Saturday night classic. 10:33 into the second period, Flyers defenceman Chris Therien wired a slapshot at the net, only to be blocked by then-27-year-old Trent McCleary.
This wasn’t your average block, however. The puck struck McCleary right in the throat, fracturing his larynx and collapsing one of his lungs in the process. He rushed to the bench where he lost consciousness; he was within minutes of dying before team doctors extended his life on the spot and rushed him to the hospital to save him.
This was the first of a handful of serious sporting injuries Montreal teams have suffered this century, all of them occurring at the Bell/Molson Center.
On April 25, 2002, Kyle McLaren of the Boston Bruins clotheslined Richard Zednik square in the head – something that would garner a 20-game suspension in today’s NHL – hard enough for a fractured cheek bone, broken nose and a concussion along with several missing teeth.
Saku Koivu took a stick to the eye in a playoff game back in 2006 from Justin Williams, almost losing his eyesight in the process, a scary moment for a cancer survivor who is still loved by practically every hockey fan in Quebec, despite playing for an opposing team.
Zdeno Chara rode Max Pacioretty into the bench-separating stanchion on March 8, 2011, the worst sports injury I have ever witnessed. The hit changed the way the NHL handles safety in the arenas, adding curved edges to stanchions and cutting down on serious head traumas since that day. After lying unconscious and motionless for seven minutes, the rookie Pacioretty was diagnosed with a fractured C4 vertebrae and a severe concussion.
On May 2, 2013, in another playoff game, Lars Eller was blind sided by Eric Gryba that left him with more broken teeth, facial injuries and a concussion.
And most recently, in the 2013-2014 season opener, George Parros fell to the ice head first during a scrap with Colton Orr. Parros seemed dazed and confused as he tried to get up, then fell back down and was stretchered off the ice with a concussion that effectively ended his NHL career as he played only 21 more games for the Canadiens.
Eric Samuels
Friday night, at Percival Molson Stadium in downtown Montreal, the Edmonton Eskimos and the Alouettes were squaring off in a Friday Night Football game. During the fourth quarter, on a special teams defensive play, Samuels went to make a tackle on Bo Bowling when team mate Calvin McCarty over ran the tackle, flipped over, and landed right on Eric Samuels head.
The medical staff from both teams immediately tended to Samuels who was moving his extremities and limbs on the field but was in clear pain. A medical team huddled around him for nearly ten minutes, as fans and media alike wondered what was going on with the young linebacker. Matt Dunigan, the TSN colour commentator, thought it was a leg injury until the stretcher came out.
Fans at the stadium must have been even more confused; the replay wasn’t shown on the scoreboard and players from both teams were mystified about what was happening, as football took a back seat to life in this situation.
Eric Samuels was stretchered off, fully conscious – he even moved his extremities to salute the crowd and his teammates. He was then taken to a nearby Montreal hospital for precautionary tests, which proved mostly negative. He was released to travel with the team the next day. The 23 year-old Vanderbilt linebacker, in his second CFL season, will not play this week as he has been told to wear a neck brace and team doctors will closely follow his injury.
Though this was not as serious as some injuries mentioned earlier, it was still scary for any fan to watch, either on TV or at the stadium. To see any grown man lie almost helpless with a medical team surrounding him is just brutal to witness, and there were a couple hundred thousand watching across several media platforms.
As an in-person witness to the Lars Eller injury, sitting about 20 rows up from the blue-line at which the hit occurred, I can be the first person to say that it is traumatizing being at the sports venue when injuries like that happen. It’s even worse for younger kids who don’t understand what’s happening and may think the athlete is dead.
Friday’s injury is almost unavoidable, just a bad mishap; so was Zednik’s in some ways. But the five other injuries in Montreal were easily avoidable. It’s up to the sports leagues themselves: they choose to be ignorant executives, or take positive action to protect their players.
Montreal sports fans have seen too many frightening injuries, some of the worst in sport alongside the incidents involving Joe Theismann, Kevin Ware, Clint Malarchuk and Richard Zednik in 2008. The medical personnel who have helped the athletes through these horrific events deserve thanks and praise, including the paramedics, surgeons, doctors, and nurses in Montreal hospitals.
But enough is enough. The NHL and CFL both need to do the same thing: act whenever and wherever they can to protect their players more before something even more drastic happens in Montreal, or anywhere.
For the latest sports injury news, check out our friends at Sports Injury Alert.
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