Also... *shudder*

Don't mind me, I'm on my lunch break catching up on reading I haven't done in a few days. I was just reading this article, about Jeff Frazee's near miss in 2009, and had the thought I have every time I hear about a case like this. 1) Why some goalies still don't wear neck protection is absolutely beyond my comprehension; 2)We beer-leaguers wouldn't have a prayer if something like this happened in one of our games or open skates. Think about it. Malarchuk, Zednik, Frazee... all these guys had medical staff right there in the blink of an eye, which is why they are alive today. (In Frazee's case I'm not so sure, since it mercifully missed his jugular... but you get my point). At midnight at our rink, the place is deserted. Running out to the desk to notify the lone staff member (or running to the locker room to call 911 on your cell yourself) would take long enough, nevermind the time it would take for the EMTs to get there.

Am I saying beer leagues should have ambulances and medical staff right there? Absolutely not, that's absurd. It's a risk we take. The number of injuries that can be instantly life-threatening fortunately is very small (cut in the wrong place, heart problem, spinal injury are the ones that come to mind), and the chances that they'll actually happen are even smaller. For all I know there could be some kind of emergency policy in place at the rink, I have no idea. There is a defibrulator in the lobby, but I have no idea how many people are actually trained to use it.

Maybe the answer is to split up the MedWings and make sure there's a doctor or med student on each and every team or participating in each open hockey session. I gotta tell ya... I've never felt safer on the ice than when I skated with those guys. Actually that's not true. With GoalieHusband playing D in front of me, if anyone so much as looks at me cross-eyed they get knocked on their ass. But that's different.