Ian Laperriere: Hockey player

NEWARK, N.J. — It happened so fast that no one reallyknew what happened until they saw the blood. Even then it took a second for it to register that, yes, it was blood from a man’s face that was dropping onto the ice at the Prudential Center on Thursday night as if it were being released from a squeezie bottle.

We saw the Devils’ player unleash a shot and Ian Laperriere go down to the ice to block it, but no one expected what we saw next.

Interestingly, one of the best ways to remove blood from an article of clothing or fabric is with an ice cube. According to one of those helpful hints web sites, the ice will melt through the fabric and take the blood with it. However, blood stains on the ice require a little more elbow grease to come out, and the trail Laperriere left on his way to the Flyers’ dressing room took a stoppage of the game and the ice crew to skate out with tools to chip it away.

Nevertheless, it only took 60-to-70 stitches over Laperriere’s eye to stop the bleeding. Who knew a piece of vulcanized rubber traveling approximately 100-mph could cause so much damage to a man’s face. Moreover, who knew a man would be so crazy enough to put his face in the way of something traveling so fast all because he felt it would be beneficial to his teammates? Or, after the stitches and the gut reaction that he had lost his right eye, why would the guy boast that he would do it again if needed?

“I do what I do and I don’t think twice about doing it,” Laperriere said. “The next game, if I get a chance to block a shot I’ll go down, because that’s what I do. The day I stop doing that, I’ll retire. Call me dumb, call me stupid, whatever. I block shots.”

Laperriere is a hockey player. There is no reason to delve more deeply into the reason why he endangered his life than that.

“He would have been back on the bench if they could have gotten him stitched up in time,” Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said.

Laviolette is speaking with the knowledge of precedent since Laperriere, a hockey player’s role player who thrives on his work in killing penalties, took a puck to the face earlier this season that opened up his mouth as if it were a piñata. In that case he needed more than 100 stitches to close the wound, and since it occurred early in the game, Laperriere was back on the ice by the third period.

Hockey player.

Just don’t equate the term “hockey player,” with “stupid.” Though his eye was stitched back together, swollen and presumably full of anesthetic while blood stains and scratches from past battles were flecked on his face, the hockey player didn’t want to hear about the inanity of his act. In fact, still dressed in his uniform undergarments and soaked with sweat and blood, Laperriere asked a scribe who questioned his mental capacity if he wanted, “to take it outside?”

Then he relented that he will wear a face shield in the future so he doesn’t have to continue to go back home and have his kids see him with his face all chewed up. After all, he’s not going to stop blocking pucks with his face if needed.

Laperriere’s teammates just kind of shrug off his talk. Broken bones, stitches and pucks to the face are just an occupational hazard.

“You’ve got a good-looking guy like Lappy throwing his face in front of one there,” he said. “Sometimes blocking one with your face is what it takes. When guys see that on the bench, that only makes them want to push harder and sacrifice more.”

Said goalie Brian Boucher: “You don't win when guys aren't paying the price. Without him, we're not going to the second round. We'd be dead.”

Hockey players.

Presumably there will be some damage from this style of play in the future. Charming and astute, Laperriere understands this and told us after he the game that he wanted to be able to see his “kids with both eyes.” Similarly, 10 years prior in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Devils, Keith Primeau got into a fight with Randy McKay in his first game back after a concussion sent him to the hospital.

Primeau thought his team needed a spark, he said, noting that his actions were probably stupid in the grander sense.

“I thought our team needed a spark,” Primeau said at the time, noting that he envisioned Lisa sitting in the stands with her head in her hands as he brawled with McKay.

“I realize it may not have been the best thing to do. I’m a father and a husband, but at the same time I’m a hockey player… ”

Ultimately, Primeau’s career was cut short because of too many concussions, and it appears likely that Laperriere will have to undergo some sort of procedure on the orbital bone surrounding his eye. Isn’t that a bit of irony? It took approximately 70 stitches to close up the wound and it will probably just have to be reopened so a surgeon can fish around in there.

Hockey player.

Time for Brian Westbrook to hang 'em up

Take a perfect Jell-o mold and place it in a bowl of your choosing. It could be Tupperware or Pyrex or whatever. Just make sure there is some space at the top for a lid and the mold is as pristine as possible.

Now, shake it the container and watch what happens to the Jell-o.

Pretty weird, huh? The mold shakes and bumps all over and usually goes back to the way it was. However, every so often pieces of the Jell-o break off and float around adjacent to the main body. Other parts develop fissures and cracks.

And even if the shape holds, the shaking loosens the foundation in a way that future shake-ups just might cause things to fall apart.

That Jell-o, friends, is what happens to a brain when it has a concussion. It bangs up against the walls of the skull with what little room is available. Usually, it bounces back and leaves one with nothing more than a really honey of a headache and some dizziness for a day or two. Other times the brain gets bruised and beat and it takes a little longer for it bounce back.

But always, not matter how mild or severe the concussion, the stage has been set for more damage in the future. After the first concussion, it’s so much easier for a person to get another one. After two, it gets even easier still.

In other words, it’s a vicious cycle in the worst way. Brain damage, disease, and even death are the side effects of future concussions.

And that’s why Brian Westbrook should sit down with the people who really love him (as opposed to those who love him as a football player) and contemplate his future in professional football. Having suffered two concussions in 21 days, Westbrook should give serious consideration to hanging ‘em up for good.

So far the Eagles aren’t saying much about Westbrook’s latest concussion aside from the basics. Andy Reid gave his typical lip service and claimed the team will “evaluate it.” But what else could he say?

“I don't know," Reid said, when asked if he thought if it would be wise for Westbrook to call it a season or even a career. “It's too early right now. I'm not that kind of person who's going to stand up here and tell you that without knowing the information. I don't know that. We're going to do everything the right way, that's the approach, and take every precautionary measure we possibly can to make sure Brian's OK. In these types of situations, football is secondary. We've got to look out for this kid and for his future and make sure everything’s OK for him before he gets back out there.”

Why are they even thinking about Westbrook getting back out there? Sure, that’s coach/jock-speak, but slow down and think for a second—two concussions in 21 days? That’s scary.

Others, like LeSean McCoy, said Westbrook will return because he’s a tough guy.

Really? The ol’ “tough guy” argument?

“I don't think it was that bad. I think he'll be back,” McCoy told reporters after the loss to the Chargers on Sunday. “I'm not sure exactly what happened, I was so involved in the game. I know he's a tough guy. He'll be ready to battle back from it.”

That’s the problem. Concussions don’t care how tough a person is or how hard a guy will “battle back from it.” That’s just stupid. But that’s how athletes think. All it takes is hard work and consistent training to return from a broken bone or a torn ligament, why can’t it be the same for a bump on the head?

For one thing, the brain is not a muscle, bone or ligament. Sometimes rest isn’t enough—for ex-athletes like Troy Aikman or Keith Primeau, post-concussion syndrome is a way of life. They live with the after-effects of too many concussions every day. For others like ex-Steelers’ star Mike Webster and former Eagle Andre Waters, the affects concussions led to an early death. At 50, homeless and suffering from depression, amnesia and dementia, Webster had a heart attack and died.

Waters committed suicide at age 44 because, according to neuropathologist Dr.Benet Omalu, his brain tissue had degenerated into that of an 85-year-old man with similar characteristics to those of early-stage Alzheimer's victims.

The cause? Concussions.

There doesn’t appear to be a real treatment from multiple concussions, either. Former Flyers’ captain Keith Primeau tried for two years to return to sports from several concussions—the first suffered in 2000 in a playoff game in Pittsburgh one game after his game-winning goal in the fifth OT—before deciding to retire.

Since then, Primeau has made concussions his cause. Last April Primeau announced that when he dies, he will donate his brain to science.

 “We owe it to the kids playing sports,” Primeau said.

Primeau says his first recorded concussion from that game in 2000 (he told me he probably had several concussions when he was young, just like any sports-crazed kid, but just waited for the dizziness to go away and jumped back into the game), was the beginning of the end.

“I think the beginning of my demise goes back to the playoff situation back in 2000,” Primeau said in April. “I got laid out at center ice and got carried off on a stretcher. I stayed overnight in a Pittsburgh hospital, only to return two nights later against New Jersey. And that was ultimately the beginning of my demise.”

Is this the beginning of the end for Westbrook? Only time will tell. However, if he continues to subject himself to more hits and head trauma, there might not be much left in the Jell-o bowl to shake up.

Primeau takes one for the team

It was a strange thing when it happened. Actually, it was a watershed moment in more ways than one only we didn’t know the entire story at the time. For some (like me) it was one of those peculiar moments in sports that makes one take notice of something extraordinary. It even changes the way we look at the games.

Yes, that was the day Keith Primeau stopped being just a mere hockey player and became something beyond that. Perhaps in some ridiculous sense he became something like a warrior-poet or some such non-sense.

Either way, he wasn’t exactly some dude skating around and whacking at a puck despite the fact that he was doing something really stupid like fighting.

Actually, Primeau was fighting in a playoff hockey game just a couple days after he had spent the night in the hospital after being knocked out cold during a game in Pittsburgh. In order to get Primeau off the ice medics had to gingerly tip-toe out there with a stretcher, strap him down and mince back off lest they slip and suffer the same fate.

I remember it like it was yesterday, though it was just about nine years ago. I remember it so vividly because it was one of those crazy little nuanced moments that people collect and talk about to others who might also have a similar collection.

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Primeau makes the smart decision

The hardest thing for an athlete to do is to be smart. No, that’s not an insult, nor is it any type of indictment of certain scholastic records. After all, it takes a top-flight engineer to be able to memorize and decipher all of the variables in an NFL playbook. Besides, those things are thicker than phone books and like Rain Man, guys like Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb know the whole thing by heart. What is meant by smart is that oftentimes for athletes the easiest and most logical decision is usually the hardest thing to come to terms with. Some athletes have no trouble going out and running 20 miles a day without fail, but when it comes time to take a day off to rest the mind and muscles most guys would prefer root canal surgery.

Take Flyers’ captain Keith Primeau, for example. After battling the effects of post-concussion syndrome for nearly a full calendar year with no foreseeable end to his rehabilitation, the erstwhile 34-year old was forced into retirement on Thursday morning. Certainly, after at least four or five concussions during his 14-season NHL career, Primeau made the “smart” decision. At home he has his wife, Lisa, and four children, whom will be around and will need their dad longer than the Flyers will need a captain and a center. In fact, in one of those “get-to-know-the-players” questionnaires that teams like to publish for the fans, Primeau lists becoming a father as his greatest accomplishment to date.

“This decision will allow me to live a normal life and hopefully, with time, few reminders of my injuries,” Primeau said on Thursday.

“My biggest fear is that I’d have regrets and at this point I don’t have regrets.”

But even something as big as being a dad rarely extinguishes what burns inside of a person. For someone like Primeau, a hockey player personified, that flame burns with a lot more intensity. Need an example? Try this out:

It was the second period of Game 2 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals where the New Jersey Devils are skating circles around the Flyers and are on the verge of taking a 2-0 lead in the series. Even though he missed parts of two games after he was carted off the ice on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital after taking a big hit from Pittsburgh’s Bob Boughner and suffering the first of a series of concussions, Primeau called out the Devils’ Randy McKay for a little tête-à-tête.

Now it wasn’t necessarily important whether or not Primeau beat McKay in the fight. The message was loud and clear.

“I thought our team needed a spark,” Primeau said at the time, noting that he envisioned Lisa sitting in the stands with her head in her hands as he brawled with McKay.

“I realize it may not have been the best thing to do,” Primeau said before telling me that he had three prior concussions that he knew of before the one in Pittsburgh, and noting that he probably had others as a kid growing up in Toronto, but nothing so serious that his dad didn’t pick him up, brush him off, and send him back out onto the ice. “I’m a father and a husband, but at the same time I’m a hockey player… ”

Sometimes hockey players don’t always make the smart decision. But in retiring, Primeau did make the smart decision because the term concussion softens what medical folks call the affliction – traumatic brain injuries.

If Primeau takes one more hard shot to the head while skating up the ice at break-neck speed, the result could be dire.

And we aren’t talking about something as easy as retirement, either.

Yet despite Thursday’s announcement and the lingering symptoms from all of those traumatic brain injuries, something tells us the fire still smolders inside of Primeau. Maybe that comes from watching Primeau run up and down the area steps after games at the Wachovia Center. Besides, doing what is smart is one thing, but the human brain is no match for the heart or guts. Worse, that little voice saying, “What if… ” will always nag even if the brain says, “This is correct.”

“He's always going to feel like he didn't get to finish on his own terms,” coach Ken Hitchcock said.

The operative word is that Primeau was “forced” into retirement because trainer Jim McCrossin tried every mind trick he could to get the captain’s head to drill some logic into his heart and guts. The trainer told Primeau he could skate with the minor leaguers on the Phantoms, or he could practice wearing a white jersey with a red cross so that other players would know not to touch him.

What self-respecting hockey player shies away from the contact?

When McCrossin finally told Primeau what he really felt – that he didn’t want to live with the consequences if the hockey player took another shot to the head – it was like getting run over by a truck.

“It was the first real time I'd been in touch with reality the last few months,” Primeau said Thursday. “I didn't want to become a distraction again.”

Primeau was thinking about the team. That’s just what a captain does. But in time, Primeau won’t be a captain anymore, and maybe he’ll start to feel better and get the itch to put those skates on again to see what he can do.

“If they let me go I’d keep pushing through. I’d keep going until they dragged me away,” Primeau said.

Hopefully, making the smart decision will be a lot easier if that itch needs to be scratched.

Primeau makes the smart decision

The hardest thing for an athlete to do is to be smart. No, that’s not an insult, nor is it any type of indictment of certain scholastic records. After all, it takes a top-flight engineer to be able to memorize and decipher all of the variables in an NFL playbook. Besides, those things are thicker than phone books and like Rain Man, guys like Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb know the whole thing by heart.

What is meant by smart is that oftentimes for athletes the easiest and most logical decision is usually the hardest thing to come to terms with. Some athletes have no trouble going out and running 20 miles a day without fail, but when it comes time to take a day off to rest the mind and muscles most guys would prefer root canal surgery.

Take Flyers’ captain Keith Primeau, for example. After battling the effects of post-concussion syndrome for nearly a full calendar year with no foreseeable end to his rehabilitation, the erstwhile 34-year old was forced into retirement on Thursday morning. Certainly, after at least four or five concussions during his 14-season NHL career, Primeau made the “smart” decision. At home he has his wife, Lisa, and four children, whom will be around and will need their dad longer than the Flyers will need a captain and a center. In fact, in one of those “get-to-know-the-players” questionnaires that teams like to publish for the fans, Primeau lists becoming a father as his greatest accomplishment to date.

“This decision will allow me to live a normal life and hopefully, with time, few reminders of my injuries,” Primeau said on Thursday.

“My biggest fear is that I’d have regrets and at this point I don’t have regrets.”

But even something as big as being a dad rarely extinguishes what burns inside of a person. For someone like Primeau, a hockey player personified, that flame burns with a lot more intensity. Need an example? Try this out:

It was the second period of Game 2 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals where the New Jersey Devils are skating circles around the Flyers and are on the verge of taking a 2-0 lead in the series. Even though he missed parts of two games after he was carted off the ice on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital after taking a big hit from Pittsburgh’s Bob Boughner and suffering the first of a series of concussions, Primeau called out the Devils’ Randy McKay for a little tête-à-tête.

Now it wasn’t necessarily important whether or not Primeau beat McKay in the fight. The message was loud and clear.

“I thought our team needed a spark,” Primeau said at the time, noting that he envisioned Lisa sitting in the stands with her head in her hands as he brawled with McKay.

“I realize it may not have been the best thing to do,” Primeau said before telling me that he had three prior concussions that he knew of before the one in Pittsburgh, and noting that he probably had others as a kid growing up in Toronto, but nothing so serious that his dad didn’t pick him up, brush him off, and send him back out onto the ice. “I’m a father and a husband, but at the same time I’m a hockey player… ”

Sometimes hockey players don’t always make the smart decision. But in retiring, Primeau did make the smart decision because the term concussion softens what medical folks call the affliction – traumatic brain injuries.

If Primeau takes one more hard shot to the head while skating up the ice at break-neck speed, the result could be dire.

And we aren’t talking about something as easy as retirement, either.

Yet despite Thursday’s announcement and the lingering symptoms from all of those traumatic brain injuries, something tells us the fire still smolders inside of Primeau. Maybe that comes from watching Primeau run up and down the area steps after games at the Wachovia Center. Besides, doing what is smart is one thing, but the human brain is no match for the heart or guts. Worse, that little voice saying, “What if… ” will always nag even if the brain says, “This is correct.”

“He's always going to feel like he didn't get to finish on his own terms,” coach Ken Hitchcock said.

The operative word is that Primeau was “forced” into retirement because trainer Jim McCrossin tried every mind trick he could to get the captain’s head to drill some logic into his heart and guts. The trainer told Primeau he could skate with the minor leaguers on the Phantoms, or he could practice wearing a white jersey with a red cross so that other players would know not to touch him.

What self-respecting hockey player shies away from the contact?

When McCrossin finally told Primeau what he really felt – that he didn’t want to live with the consequences if the hockey player took another shot to the head – it was like getting run over by a truck.

“It was the first real time I'd been in touch with reality the last few months,” Primeau said Thursday. “I didn't want to become a distraction again.”

Primeau was thinking about the team. That’s just what a captain does. But in time, Primeau won’t be a captain anymore, and maybe he’ll start to feel better and get the itch to put those skates on again to see what he can do.

“If they let me go I’d keep pushing through. I’d keep going until they dragged me away,” Primeau said.

Hopefully, making the smart decision will be a lot easier if that itch needs to be scratched.

Primeau contemplates his future

Keith Primeau is one of those athletes that one watches when they want to learn about the nuances of sport. Tall and sinewy like a forward in basketball, it’s plain to see that Primeau will do almost anything if it means that his hockey team will win one more game. Whether it’s his off-ice preparation spent with hours on the stationary bike in the team’s training room, or with lap after monotonous lap up and down the bleacher steps in the Wachovia Center after a game, count on Primeau doing the work. Don’t exclude the team-bonding grunt work, either. As the Flyers’ captain, Primeau takes on the responsibility of helping a new teammate find a place to stay and showing him around his new town. He also organizes the team parties, gauges the team’s mood and acts as an intermediary with the coaches and team brass, and has the thankless task of being front and center for the press every day.

“I learned a long time ago that my job is not just to perform on the ice,” Primeau said in an interview a few years ago. “So much more goes into your professional being as a hockey player. Media relations, public relations – I accept this. If I can deflect some of the attention away from the younger guys and allow them to play, I’ll do that.”

The same goes for the intangibles on the ice, as well. In that regard, Primeau is one of those players whose true worth is not seen in the every day box scores. Maybe he’ll block a goalie’s view by positioning himself just so in the slot so that Simon Gagne can blast one. Maybe he can deliver a check that pries the puck loose in the offensive zone to set up a goal.

Or maybe he can sense that the team needs a pick-me-up and gets into a fight.

One instance of Primeau picking a fight that stands out more so than any other was the little tête-à-tête with the Devils’ Randy McKay in Game 2 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals. During the second period where New Jersey was skating circles around the Flyers and were on the verge of taking a 2-0 lead in the series, Primeau took the bumping with McKay as an invitation to do something. So before the crowd at the First Union Center (that’s what the building was called back then) knew what happened, Primeau dropped his gloves, rolled up his sleeves, checked to make sure his helmet was fastened and called McKay out.

It wasn’t important whether or not Primeau beat McKay. The message was loud and clear.

“I thought our team needed a spark,” Primeau said at the time.

But that scrap came barely a week after Primeau suffered a concussion in a game in Pittsburgh. Though he was carted off the ice on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital after taking a big hit from Pittsburgh’s Bob Boughner, Primeau missed just one game and envisioned his wife sitting in the stands with her head in her hands as he brawled with McKay.

“I realize it may not have been the best thing to do,” Primeau said before telling me that he had three prior concussions that he knew of before the one in Pittsburgh. “I’m a father and a husband, but at the same time I’m a hockey player… “

Maybe that’s why Primeau has merely decided to put his career on hold six years and at least three head injuries later. He is a hockey player. In fact, Primeau still had not decided whether he was going to shut it down for the season just a day before his emotional press conference last Tuesday.

Primeau says he is sitting out with the hope of prolonging his career, which is a great. It’s hard not to root for a man like Primeau. But when he admitted that he still had post-concussion symptoms from the head injury he suffered last Oct. 25, maybe the writing is on the wall. In fact just the term concussion softens what the affliction really is – medical people call them traumatic brain injuries.

Needless to say, multiple brain injuries could result in the most of dire circumstances.

Still, we hope that Primeau can recover in time for training camp next September, and we hope to see him back out there on the ice real soon.

But not at the expense of being a father and a husband.