Simply put, it was an accident. No one should point fingers or blame anyone. It was an accident.
On Sunday night, as Panthers' Olli Jokinen had stumbled over a Sabres player, his right skate came up and cut his teammate Richard Zednik's neck as he was skating in behind the play. Zednik stumbled over Jokinen and headed straight to the bench with his hand over his neck and a trail of blood behind him. The medical trainer was there to put a towel to his neck as fellow teammate Jassen Cullimore helped him off the ice.
Just as soon as Zednik stepped foot onto the bench, he collapsed into the trainer as he was carried off to the locker room to be attended to by the medical staff in the Sabres arena.
''It's something you never want to see,'' his teammate Stephen Weiss said choked up. ``It's the worst thing I've ever seen in hockey. The worst went through my mind. . . . Just his face [when he was] coming off [the ice], was just, you know, something you don't want to see. I don't know how to explain it, but it was a scary look. He looked very scared.''
''I walked in and saw him on the stretcher,'' Panthers' goalie Tomas Vokoun said. ``I was very concerned when he came off. He was obviously very scared. He was conscious, I guess, that's what the trainer said. His eyes were closed, but he was moving and moaning.''
As Zednik was attended to by the medical doctors in the arena, hockey fans throughout HSBC Arena stood in shock looking at the three puddles of blood and the trail of blood to the locker room.
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Re: This Is When Hockey Becomes Scary: Richard Zednik
By luyen, February 11, 2008 at 19:14As one of many many people who play hockey, the three things you never want to see happen is 1) sharp skate hitting someone, let alone someone's neck 2) a puck to anywhere near the head 3) a stick to the eye, or face.
A few years ago Brian Berard was blinded in one eye due to an errant stick, just horrific accident, and considering the number of players and games, these kind of accidents are rare, but a really visceral reminder of how frail the human body is.
Re: This Is When Hockey Becomes Scary: Richard Zednik
By Robyn Stubbs, February 11, 2008 at 10:45Thanks for that, Michelle. Thank God you rarely see such injuries on the ice; all the best to Zednik and his family.