Hockey takes backseat to tragedy in Buffalo

Several Sabres players live in Clarence Center, the suburban-rural area where the commuter flight from Newark crashed and they talked about the experience. Defenseman Teppo Numminen heard both the sound of the plane coming down and the noise from the impact. He and his wife opened the shade on the bedroom window and could see the flames and the red sky. Goalie Patrick Lalime lived even closer. Former Shark Craig Rivet lived nearby, but far enough away that he and his family weren’t aware of the 10:20 p.m. crash until they woke up this morning.

Some of the Sharks, too, reflected on their own flight difficulties in getting out of Pittsburgh, but they expressed confidence in their charter pilot, stating that the plane would not have taken off if conditions were a serious threat. The landing in Buffalo, while buffeted a little bit by high winds and with limited visibility, wasn’t that rough — though it came less than five hours ahead of the plane that crashed.

via Hockey takes backseat to tragedy in Buffalo, but game is on — minus ailing Clowe and (probably) Boyle | Working the Corners.

There’s a subset of fans that like to think that NHL players should be robots, simply because they get paid a lot of money. You know the time: “With the money they make, they better show up every night!” — which is nice in theory, but given these are humans (well paid or no) with human limitations and frailties, it’s going to happen.

and then once in a while something happens that reminds you how human they are. My thoughts go out to all of the Sabres players and staff and the communities they live in for what they’re going through now. The show does go on, and should — but I’ll bet it’s going to be a tough night for some of them.

If you lived close enough t the crash to realize than 10 seconds difference in how the plane came down could have landed it on your house, how would YOU feel at work the next few days?

Remember that the next time some thoughtless fan rips a player for not playing 82 “A” games because they don’t care that the guy is playing through a case of flu that’d have most of us in the hospital for a week….

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  • steve

    With all the attention on the longterm affects of concussion more focus should be on prevention. The blow to the jaw, boxers “Glass Jaw”, the work of a local Tufts Temporal Mandibular Specialist, must be recognized when considering this type of concussion. Why do some athletes become “prone” to recurrence. A diagnosable marker in “prone” N.E. Patriot Players and random sampling of South Shore High school athletes have shown in three peer reviewed papers, to have a drastic reduction in recurrence in concussion from blows to the jaw. A Braintree soldier on his way to remove IED from the roads of Iraq has had this marker, a dime sized cartilage disc within the TMJ, corrected and has been fitted with the same orthotic retainer like mouth guard used by our local football team. Yet, the rest of his platoon will not be protected by this ADA approved oral protection, because the NFL and local institutions have not considered this procedure as real science. One peer reviewed paper stated, 30 kids had 50 concussions, when corrected and fitted, the same group had only three in the group. Another reads, 12 N.E. Patriot players with multiple concussions, one reports four, after fitting none reported. Dementia Pugilistica or CTP related brain disease is thought to be a result of repeated jaw blows. One player in the B.U. study who wore this device and has no reported CPT, it was stated on WEEI, “I don't have those white spots on my brain”, another CPT suffer repeatedly comments, one on CNN “I got kicked in the chin”. This marker within the jaw joint may be the mechanism that triggers the point of origin for this type of concussion. Blows to the spinal cord and crown of the head, are a different type of trauma. This
    “superior” method of constructing a biomechnic correction is clearly a better way of addressing concussion with a multidisciplinary approach to concussion awareness. Waiting for a child to have a concussion, is foolish, any known means of prevention must be considered. With a history of use within the NFL for over two decades, now being reviewed by the NHL medical committee and a subject of controversy with the commissioner of the NFL. More attention must be put on this device now thought to be one way of reducing MTBI in our troops. http://www.mahercor.com

  • steve

    With all the attention on the longterm affects of concussion more focus should be on prevention. The blow to the jaw, boxers “Glass Jaw”, the work of a local Tufts Temporal Mandibular Specialist, must be recognized when considering this type of concussion. Why do some athletes become “prone” to recurrence. A diagnosable marker in “prone” N.E. Patriot Players and random sampling of South Shore High school athletes have shown in three peer reviewed papers, to have a drastic reduction in recurrence in concussion from blows to the jaw. A Braintree soldier on his way to remove IED from the roads of Iraq has had this marker, a dime sized cartilage disc within the TMJ, corrected and has been fitted with the same orthotic retainer like mouth guard used by our local football team. Yet, the rest of his platoon will not be protected by this ADA approved oral protection, because the NFL and local institutions have not considered this procedure as real science. One peer reviewed paper stated, 30 kids had 50 concussions, when corrected and fitted, the same group had only three in the group. Another reads, 12 N.E. Patriot players with multiple concussions, one reports four, after fitting none reported. Dementia Pugilistica or CTP related brain disease is thought to be a result of repeated jaw blows. One player in the B.U. study who wore this device and has no reported CPT, it was stated on WEEI, “I don't have those white spots on my brain”, another CPT suffer repeatedly comments, one on CNN “I got kicked in the chin”. This marker within the jaw joint may be the mechanism that triggers the point of origin for this type of concussion. Blows to the spinal cord and crown of the head, are a different type of trauma. This
    “superior” method of constructing a biomechnic correction is clearly a better way of addressing concussion with a multidisciplinary approach to concussion awareness. Waiting for a child to have a concussion, is foolish, any known means of prevention must be considered. With a history of use within the NFL for over two decades, now being reviewed by the NHL medical committee and a subject of controversy with the commissioner of the NFL. More attention must be put on this device now thought to be one way of reducing MTBI in our troops. http://www.mahercor.com