Re: The Playoff Scoreboard
If anyone who posts here besides me regularly sees college men's games they will know that those referees do a much better job of protecting players from serious injury than what you see in the women's game (and boy's high school too for that matter). It has become quite common for players to get 5 - and either a game misconduct or a game DQ - for checking from behind resulting in a player going head first into the boards. In this case I was standing close to right above where the hit happened, and I immediately thought that a major was very possible, although not assured because it wasn't an intentional hard hit. I was OK with the call for that reason (although I don't think the timing of the call late in a close game should have any bearing on it). But I always HATE witnessing those types of plays, no matter which teams are playing, because those types of infractions can result in a lifelong, very serious injury for the player getting hit.
My nephew played hockey from a very young age through high school. During a high school game (I wasn't there, my brother in law filled me in) my brother in law saw the other team's coach tap a rough player on that team who was on the bench and pointed to my nephew who was on the ice and nodded at the kid as if to confirm that the player understood the unspoken instruction. The kid, armed with a green light from his coach...and worse, probably feeling somewhat special for being singled out by the coach for this testosterone pumping assignment, jumped over the boards onto the ice and skated, from behind, straight toward my nephew who didn't even have the puck but who was facing the boards.
The kid on the assignment blindsided my nephew driving him head first into the boards.
The next scene was in the hospital emergency ward shortly thereafter. I don't recall all the specifics but my nephew had suffered at least one broken/crushed vertebrae (might have been more) in his neck and it was an extremely serious, complicated and delicate surgery with the head surgeon telling my sister and brother in law that the odds of a great result were not high. With that caution they sat in the waiting room for I think it was 6-8 hours going through mind numbing interminable agony that only a parent can really understand...endlessly contemplating all the possibilities for their son.
The plan was to remove a piece of bone from my nephew's leg and to use it to "fashion" a vertebrae or two to replace the damaged one(s) in his neck. Think about the surgeon's doing all this without damaging the ultra delicate superhighway of nerves that runs through the spinal column. But, again, the odds weren't great for success. What exactly did the alternative mean? I don't know.
Late that night, after a multi hour wait in which every minute seemed like hell, the exhausted looking surgeon walked into the waiting room toward my sister and brother in law, not looking like the bearer of good news.
He looked at my brother in law and said "if I were you I wouldn't waste any time ever buying lottery tickets again...tonight, you just won the lottery."
Apparently, the surgery could not have turned out any better.
The downside...my nephew lot 30% in his range of motion to one side (he can't turn his head all the way on one side).
I had a number of conversations afterwards with my brother in law about a law suit that they were pursuing against the other kid and his parents...it went on for several years as I remember...and then fizzled out.
All this pain, suffering, anguish, stress and money because of a brain dead coach and a kid eager to please who might have had a greater than normal propensity to accomplish said task.
A decision made, instructions given and the task engaged in and completed, all in just a handful of seconds.
And the quality of life for one person altered forever...with lots of collateral damage.
All of it completely avoidable.
