Technik » all was not lost for those who came out on a rainy Saturd

Some days - not too many, thankfully - I feel like it sucks to get old. Or, more precisely, it sucks to watch great hockey people you admire and respect grow old. Friday was one of those days. Thats when the family of 74-year-old Stan Mikita announced the Hall of Fame Chicago Blackhawk centre and beloved franchise ambassador is facing serious health issues, that he has been diagnosed with suspected Lewy Body dementia, a progressive disease and is currently under the care of compassionate and understanding care givers. On the same day as that most unwelcome Mikita news, blogger Howard Berger (bergerbytes.ca) posted a current photograph of 82-year-old former NHL defenceman and Hall of Fame coach Al Arbour, updating his condition (dementia and Parkinsons Disease) and inviting fans to send best wishes to Arbour at his retirement home in Florida. Arbours health issues were widely reported in the media last summer - it isnt necessarily news hes now suffering dementia - but whats that they say about one picture being worth a thousand words? That the failing health of these two Hall of Famers intersected, sadly, on the same day only added to the magnitude of the misfortune. At least it did for a kid who spent his formative Original Six hockey years growing up in Toronto in the 1960s, admiring the two men for very different reasons. *** I loved Stan Mikitas hockey stick before I came to fully appreciate him as a hockey player. Bobby Hulls too. The two Blackhawk stars were, of course, the most famous originators of the curved stick in hockey. I dont want to say you had to be there in the 1960s to truly comprehend the impact of that phenomenon on the game but, really, you had to be there. My friends and I were totally enthralled and captivated by it. You had to see a Mikita or Hull curved blade to believe it. Not for nothing were they called banana blades, more boomerang than blade. Perhaps not coincidentally, (then hockey equipment manufacturer) Cooper came out with what was known as the Super Blade, a plastic road hockey blade that could be affixed to a wooden stick shaft. The beauty of the Super Blade (aside from the fact it was more or less indestructible and ran more smoothly than wood over asphalt) was you could curve it as much, or as little, as you liked. Right or left, it didnt matter. My friends and I preferred a lot over a little, thanks to Mikita and Hull. You had to heat the blade over a stove top to curve it. My Mom always feared I would burn down the house while curving my Super Blade, but, truth be told, boiling the water to mold my Cooper Adanac inside-the-mouth mouth guard for real hockey was far more dangerous, but thats another story. We all wanted to be Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull when we played road hockey, the ultimate compliment coming from kids raised on Punch Imlachs Maple Leafs. If it wasnt too cold out, you could take your Super Blade and add extra curve to it by sticking it in the sewer grate and bend it to absurd proportions. Mikita and Hull, of course, were so much more than their curved sticks. Hull was The Golden Jet, along with Gordie Howe, the biggest name(s) in the game. Mikita, as much as he was a star, was also complex and contradictory, so many things to so many people. My Dad often referred to Mikita as a, dirty S.O.B. And, for a time, he was. In his first six years in the NHL, Mikita had 100 or more penalty minutes in each of four seasons (154 was his personal best or is it worst?), 97 in one of the two years he didnt hit the century mark. Stosh, as he was known, was mean, not afraid to use his stick for more than scoring goals. No one ever doubted his skill and offensive ability – in his second NHL season he played a significant role in the Hawks 1961 Stanley Cup victory and was legitimate star who won four NHL scoring titles in a five year stretch between 1963 and 1968 - but Mikita was often one nasty bit of business. If the advent of the curved stick revolutionized the game on one level, Mikita effected what had to be one of the most remarkable individual transformations in the history of hockey on another. So, in back-to-back seasons (1966-67 and 1967-68), Mikita not only won the Art Ross Trophy as NHL leading scorer and Hart Trophy as NHL MVP, but he also won the Lady Byng Trophy as the leagues most gentlemanly and sportsmanlike player. It was a stunning reversal. Two scoring titles, two MVPs, two most gentlemanly player awards, with penalty minute totals of 12 and 14, in two years after being one of the NHLs most notorious bad boys and stick men. He remains the only NHL player to win those three trophies in the same season, and he did it twice. Mikita was a special player. Only a special person could re-define himself the way he did. If I went to my uncles house on a Saturday night, when the Hawks were playing the Leafs, Mikita was a revered figure there. My uncle married into a Polish family, and though Mikita was born in Czechoslovakia (he moved to Canada when he was eight), that was close enough for fellow Eastern Europeans to identify with. They loved him. We knew from Mikitas hockey card that his original name was Stanislav Gouth, born in Czechoslovakia (Slovakia actually). He was raised in St. Catharines, Ont., by his aunt and uncle and took their last name - Mikita. By any name, he was extraordinary. His innovating ways didnt end with the curved stick. Mikita was reportedly knocked unconscious by New York Ranger defenceman Rod Seiling in a 1968 playoff game. According to accounts, Mikita left the game for a few minutes and came back to lead his team to victory. He subsequently helped to design and wore what became known as his trademark bulbous Stan Mikita model helmet, one of the first NHL veterans to opt for protective headgear. Al Arbour, meanwhile, could not have been more different than Mikita. He wasnt an offensive star; he wasnt a star at all. He was a defensive defenceman who had to battle just to hang on in the NHL. Funny enough, and I didnt know this until now, Mikita and Arbour were teammates on the Cup-winning 1961 Hawks. For the better part of the 60s, between 1962 and 1967, Arbour was more an American Leaguer with the Rochester Americans than he was a Maple Leaf. That, I always knew. A kid growing up in Toronto in the 1960s knew em all, the Leafs and the wannabe Leafs in Rochester. The Amerks even played some games at Maple Leaf Gardens and Id go to watch them there. Then there was Arbours hockey card. My friends and I were fascinated by it. We loved that Arbours name was, in fact, Alger, but more importantly, that he wore glasses, both in the photo in his hockey card and on the ice. That alone distinguished him from every other hockey player. As such, we reserved a special sort of attention for this Alger Arbour fellow. Then expansion came in 1967 and he was off to St. Louis to become captain of the Blues and, ultimately, to make a far greater impact as a coach than a player. *** That kid in Toronto never would have imagined growing up one day to work in the hockey business, getting up close and personal with the faces and people he had only ever saw on TV or on a hockey card. That experience can be a double-edged sword because thats when you find out some of your childhood heroes or hockey stars may not be exactly who you thought they were. Suffice to say that never happened with Stan Mikita or Al Arbour. Post retirement - chronic back woes forced Mikita to call it quits during the 1979-80 season -- any occasion I came across Mikita, he was so cool and charismatic. He had a regal air about him. He was the nattiest of dressers, a real sharp-dressed man. When Bobby Hull and Mikita were at functions together, Bobby could be ribald and crass, Stan would be smooth as silk and all class, though you knew he still, in a very good way, had a little bit of the devil in him, too. When the new regime of the Blackhawks finally welcomed their superstars – chiefly Hull and Mikita – back into the fold after decades of neglecting them, Stan the Man took his ambassadorship to heart and assumed, quite rightfully, exalted status within the organization. Hes a veritable icon in Chicago and has the statue outside the United Centre to prove it. By the time I started covering the NHL in 1982, the still bespectacled Arbour was in the midst of coaching the four-Cup dynasty of the New York Islanders and well on his way to becoming a legendary bench boss, who even today is second only to Scotty Bowman in career wins. He was always patient and caring and friendly with inquisitors and for a young media guy breaking into the business that was appreciated more than he would ever know. Arbour and his boss, Islander general manager Bill Torrey, were great at their jobs. At their very core, though, you could tell they were just good people. Als players loved him. Over the years, when I would work in TV with former Islanders, first Glenn Healy and now Ray Ferraro, they would always speak so lovingly of him. They had great insights into him as a coach and wonderful, funny stories of him as a man, which made him all the more endearing. Their respect, admiration and affection for him came off them in waves. *** Diseases that attack the brain are insidious things. I know this only too well. My maternal grandfathers quality of life - and ultimately his actual life - were taken by a degenerative neurological disorder that eventually robbed him of his ability to walk, talk and engage in any semblance of coordination. My Dad died of brain cancer, a tumour. It was astonishing how quickly after he was diagnosed that he was robbed of his faculties. Intellectually, mentally, he was long gone before the cancer claimed his physical life. It isnt pretty watching someone go down that road, whether its cancer, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, dementia, Lewy Body or otherwise, and who knows what other neurological time bombs that may be out there. Im sure many of you know that only too well from your personal experience, just as the loved ones and friends of Stan Mikita and Al Arbour are dealing with it now. The same goes for the Gordie Howe and his family, who have been dealing with Mr. Hockeys dementia for years, quite aside from his recent health scares involving stroke(s). As much as I can relate to that, Im also a journalist, curious by nature, and as sad and empathetic as I was with Fridays news, I must admit I also wondered if there might be any connection between the brain diseases afflicting Mikita and Arbour (Howe, too) and having played professional hockey, possibly suffering brain trauma along the way. I am not a doctor, too dumb to have even considered the notion. I also know millions are afflicted with dementia or Alzheimers or Parkinsons and most of them never played so much as a game of hockey or football or anything that caused repetitive brain trauma. These things often just seem to happen, especially with those in their seventies and eighties. Maybe thats simply the case here. We dont know; were not likely to ever know. Still, that doesnt stop me from wondering. We cant ignore the reality of what has gone on in sports and medicine in the last 10 years, especially in the National Football League: all the research that has been done by forensic pathologist Bennett Olamu, Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist, and Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon, as well as so many others who have linked, in varying degrees, repetitive head trauma in football, boxing, wrestling, hockey and other contact sports, to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a progressive degenerative brain disease that, for now anyway, can only be definitively diagnosed after the patient has died. If you havent read the book, League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth, by Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada, you really should. It chronicles not only the NFLs reticence to deal with the head trauma/CTE issue but the in-fighting amongst medical practitioners to be at the forefront of the movement. Its a fascinating read, a subject that isnt going away. Mostly, though, the book specifies the tragic lives and deaths of football players with CTE who were afflicted with a wide range of early onset neurological disorders that quite likely contributed to their deaths. Medical evidence isnt as plentiful, at least not yet anyway, in hockey as it has been in football, but Dr. McKees work with the Boston University brain bank – where the brains of deceased athletes are studied for CTE – has yielded connections between deceased NHLers and CTE. Original Six tough guy/enforcer Reggie Fleming had a long history of behavioral and cognitive issues. After his death in 2009, at the age of 73, his post-mortem brain examination confirmed the presence of CTE. Similar autopsies on ex-Buffalo Sabre star Richard Martin, who died of a heart attack at age 59 with no apparent or overt neurological disorders, and legendary NHL tough guy Bob Probert, who died in 2010 at age 45 of an apparent heart attack, also confirmed the presence of CTE. Most recently, a brain autopsy on NHL tough guy Derek Boogaard, who died at age 28 in 2011 from what was deemed to be an accidental death (mixing alcohol and oxycodone), also revealed CTE. In the wake of that, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was quoted as follows: There isnt a lot of data, and the experts who we talked to, who consult with us, think that its way premature to be drawing any conclusions. Fair enough. Its a serious issue and it deserves to be treated seriously, with empirical data and hard evidence. Time will tell how it all plays out for hockey. But as someone whos been around this game for the better part of my life – recognizing I certainly have none of that hard evidence or empirical data -- I do sometimes get a terrible sense of foreboding, that as the speed of the game has dramatically increased every decade since the 1960s, both the quality and quantity of impact to the players brains have increased, too. Perhaps were only looking at the tip of a very large iceberg in hockey. I know some retired NHL players who played in the 1980s and 1990s who estimate theyve suffered 10 to 15 concussions, experiencing all manner of symptoms and issues. Ive talked to these players; Ive worked alongside some of them in television. I wont lie. I fear for them and hope beyond all hope my fears are unfounded, that hockeys terrible day of reckoning on head trauma exists more in my mind than reality. In the meantime, me wondering about the possible causes of Stan Mikitas and Al Arbours neurological afflictions, as well as where brain trauma in hockey may be headed, doesnt alter my feelings from Friday in any way: that is, the sadness and empathy I have for two marvelous hockey men I so admired when I was a kid. Balenciaga Shoes Sale .com) - Novak Djokovic easily took care of Andy Murray to reach the final at the $2. Fake Balenciaga For Sale . 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Hoefl-Rieschs exit — from the downhill course into safety nets, then airlifted from the slope by helicopter — left Anna Fenninger of Austria favourite to win her first giant crystal trophy one month after becoming an Olympic champion.UNIONDALE, N.Y. - Martin Brodeur returned to the New York metropolitan area for yet another triumph.Not to New Jersey, but dressed in one.The longtime Devils goalie is back in the NHL with the St. Louis Blues after spending more than two decades wearing New Jerseys red and black.He was scheduled for a day off Saturday, two days after making his first appearance with the Blues, but a rough first period for starting goalie Jake Allen forced the 42-year-old Brodeur into action after 20 minutes.When it was over, Brodeur earned his first win with St. Louis — a come-from-behind, 6-4 victory over the New York Islanders.I didnt come back not to win, Brodeur said after stopping 14 of 15 shots. Thats what I like to do. This is what Ive driven my career about. Its all about winning.Allen got the nod despite Brodeur already owning a career-best 51 wins against the then-rival Islanders while he was with the Devils, Brodeur watched the opening period of this matinee from the backup goalies seat in the tunnel.Brodeur was his usual affable self. He held court in front of recognizable reporters who covered him during his years with the Devils.Familiar faces. I like it, he said.There were some mixed into the crowd, as well, as his wife and two children were in attendance. They will accompany him back to St. Louis.His place with the Blues is somewhat tenuous. Although he signed a one-year deal this week, he knows he is there out of necessity following a knee injury to top goalie Brian Elliott in a game against Ottawa on Nov. 25.Elliott skated this week, but coach Ken Hitchcock said he isnt close to returning to action.I am coming here to help these guys, not to be the guy that is going to carry them, Brodeur said. Who knows whats going to happen in the future?Brodeur was brought in by the Blues the day after Elliotts injury on a practice agreement, and six days later he signed his first NHL contract that didnt say New Jersey Devils on top.Its definitely a change, Brodeur said. Not just playing hockey, but being part of a different organization. Thats what kind of makes you feel a little younger and kind of excited about everything.And now wearing the sweater with the familiar blue note on it?That was weird. I cant hide it, he said. Its something that for 20 years I did the same thing over and over. Now that was a change ... but I got used to it now and Im really excited to be here.Brodeur added his first new positive stat to his resume on Saturday. He came out of his first game with the Blues feeling OK, despite a 4-3 loss at the Nashville Predators in which he made 20 saves on Thursday.He looked more than adequate, to be honest with you, Hitchcock said.Brodeur is in good shape, feels good, and more importantly believes he has a lot left to offer this team, or another, both on and off the ice.His time in New Jersey just ran out.But before it did, Brodeur won the Vezina Trophy as the NHLs top goalie four times — most recently in 2008 — and was a three-time Stanley Cup champion. Last season he was 19-14-6 with a 2.51 goals-against average, .901 save percentage and three shutouts in 39 games, but wasnt re-signed.He is the NHL leader in wins (689) and shutouts (124), and has even posted more victories than the Tampa Bay Lightning franchise.Im OK. I was OK, Brodeur said. Its just that somebody deccided I was too old somewhere along the way.dddddddddddd I didnt feel like that. I am happy to be back and having another chance to play and play for a really good team.Brodeur has no hard feelings toward Devils president and general manager Lou Lamoriello or anyone else within the New Jersey organization. He talked to his longtime boss before his tryout with the Blues and before he inked his deal.He was really happy, Brodeur said of Lamoriello, who could have a job for him once Brodeurs playing days are finally over. Our relationship is something that I care about, and his input is really important. Hes really excited about this opportunity for me and see where that is going to bring me.I heard from most of the players. Everybody knew that I still have something left and that I wanted to play, so they were all excited.While the Islanders are excelling and filling Nassau Coliseum on a regular basis in their final season at their longtime home before relocating to Brooklyn, the prospect of another visit from Brodeur helped them sell at least a few more tickets.He is going to go down as one of the greats, and he still looks pretty darn good in the net, as well, Blues defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk said.Devils jerseys and T-shirts with the name Brodeur on the back were scattered around the arena, and Brodeur noticed them during pregame warmups. He was quick to flash a smile and a greeting as he made his way around the ice.They made the trip here and wear my jersey, so they must still like me, he said. We have some Devils fans that are still on my side, I guess.Two of those came from New Jersey, and were heading back there to see their beloved Devils play at home Saturday night.I bought (tickets) right before he signed, said Stacy Hagan, from Totowa. I have been a Devils fan my whole life.We got to see him behind the goal one more time. We got a wave. There were a bunch of us down there, so it was kind of cool.While she sported a white Devils jersey, her friend Victor Tafro wore the red version. Both were glad they came, but were disappointed that Allen got the start over Brodeur.I hope he does well, Tafro said. I feel bad that we didnt give him a chance on our team.But all was not lost for those who came out on a rainy Saturday for another glimpse at the future Hall of Famer. After Allen allowed three goals on 12 shots in the first period, Brodeur started the second down 3-0.St. Louis tied it 3-3 in the second, but John Tavares pushed New York back in front heading into the third. That drew sing-song chants of Mar-ty, Mar-ty from the re-energized Islanders faithful.A three-goal third period provided the Blues their winning margin.We have no opposition to using him at any time, Hitchcock said before the game. We think we can win with him. We think he helps us win. Were in the winning business.After the Islanders took a 1-0 lead, many in the crowd began chanting We Want Marty! Shortly after the lead grew to three, they got their wish.They scored again, and I said I guess theyre going to get me, Brodeur said.Islanders coach Jack Capuano seemed content before the game to have Brodeur stay on the bench.Weve seen enough of him over the years, Capuano said. Its like having another defenceman back there.Its a good hockey club over there. I am sure he will fit right in. ' ' '