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It was inside the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room that Ike Werner first convinced himself that he would survive.
After accidentally cutting his throat with a skate blade during a Sunday afternoon rec league game at the NHL team’s practice facility earlier this month, a terrifying experience became surreal when the 37-year-old looked up and saw Maple Leafs forward Nick Robertson Seen receiving treatment. In the next room.
“That was my scene,” explained Werner. athletic, “That’s being worked on.”
Werner had noticed the luxury cars behind the gated portion of the parking lot when entering the Ford Performance Center that afternoon. Zamboni was also resurfacing the ice earlier than usual, so he thought the Leafs skated on Rink 2 before his “Prestige Worldwide” team faced off against the “Jägerbombs” in the True North Hockey League.
This fact became even more important to him when, in the third inning of the game, he suffered a serious injury and found himself under the care of Leafs athletic therapists Paul Ayotte and Neil Davidson as he scrambled for help.
“They were great,” Werner said. “They were very calming and that helped me, if you like, because I was spiraling.”
It’s not a place any rec-league player could reasonably imagine finding themselves – even after the death in October of former NHLer Adam Johnson while playing professionally in England.
That tragedy highlighted the need for more cut-resistant equipment in the game and saw players at all levels begin wearing it. Werner recalled the topic being discussed among his men’s league team in the fall and said he had also tried unsuccessfully to purchase a neck guard at that time.
As one of the older players in a reasonably competitive league, he’s been more careful than other players when it comes to his gear recently, having worn wrist guards, cut-resistant socks and previously worn a visor (pictured at top). Were alert. Full face shield.
“When Adam Johnson died, you couldn’t buy neck guards,” Werner said. “I tried. Now, this was a few months ago, and I probably could have kept it going, but didn’t.
“One of the things I said to my wife was, ‘This is rec league. It’s not that fast. The equipment isn’t at that level. The skates aren’t that fast. It’s not going to be in rec league.’
Except when it happened.
NHL player poll: Why 78 percent say there should be no neck-guard mandate ⤵️https://t.co/mIvJtEuyGh
– The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) 2 February 2024
Werner does not remember anything about what happened. After that none of his friends believed it immediately.
In fact, until Werner’s league coordinator sent a clip taken from a 360-degree camera installed at the ground on Tuesday night, no one was able to get a clear picture of what had happened.
The drama seemed as harmless as they come. Standing in the slot in front of his own goal, Werner pounced on a loose puck as an opponent charged at him and injured him, knocking him off balance. As the opponent fell to the ice, his right skate bounced and caught Werner under the face mask.
Incredibly, the force of the impact did not knock Werner off his feet, even though it caused significant injuries to his upper chest and neck area, which persisted a week after the February 4 incident. This also opened a cut which required 12 stitches to close.
The video clip confirmed the only aspect of the sequence that Werner remembered clearly: he picked up his fallen stick after the collision and skated to the bench under his own power.
What was also clear in his memory was how little pain he felt and how little blood he lost immediately after the play. He says it felt like a small scratch or a jersey burn. Except that when he returned to the bench an official told him he needed to leave the field of play immediately.
Long-time teammate Jack McVeigh accompanied Werner to the dressing room after taking a brief look at what his friend was dealing with.
“It was quite shocking that he was still alive after seeing the injuries,” McVeigh said. “He took his hand off his neck and you were like, ‘Ooooh. Holy f—.’
“I don’t even know what was going through my mind except ‘You’ve got to go and deal with that.'”
Werner did not lose his temper until he caught a glimpse of the wound in the mirror when he returned to the dressing room. According to McVeigh, he immediately turned white.
There was a brief discussion about calling an ambulance and going to the arena lobby until Werner remembered that the Leafs were in the building. He was noticed by Armando Cavalheiro, who works as a cameraman for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment and was standing nearby after covering practice. Cavalheiro began banging on the back door of the dressing room until the door opened and Werner was allowed inside.
He was immediately attended to by Davidson and Ayotte, the Leafs’ medical staff, who applied pressure to the neck area and examined the injury. They eventually closed it with steri strips and bandaged Werner after determining that he needed to go to the hospital for further testing before getting stitches.
Equally importantly, he assured that everything would be fine.
“They were great,” Werner said. “Asking me some questions: ‘Can you breathe properly?’ ‘Can you swallow okay?’ Like those kinds of things to rule out any serious, serious things.
“They’re like ‘You’re lucky to be alive.'”
Under normal circumstances, they might not be there to help someone injured during a 4 p.m. rec league game.
The Leafs typically practice in the afternoon, but that day they did not skate until 2:45 p.m. because the team was returning from the All-Star break and league rules do not schedule any mandatory activities before noon. Went.
Werner, the father of a 3-month-old baby, went alone to St. Joseph’s Hospital and sent only a quick message to his wife that he had been decapitated and would be OK. He was immediately admitted to a hospital bed and had stitches by 5:15 pm – only an hour after leaving the ice.
Because the skate that had touched it was so sharp, the cut was clean and easily stitched closed. Local anesthesia was administered and Werner began to bleed heavily while doctors checked how deep the wound was. She had to take off the shirt she was wearing in favor of one left for her at the hospital by McVay.
However, it was a scene with good news. A CT scan revealed that the skate had cut into the muscle, but not through it, making surgery unnecessary.
One of the emergency room doctors told Werner that she played high-level hockey recreationally and she vowed not to return to the ice without first getting her neck guard.
“It missed my vocal cords, my esophagus, arteries, veins, everything,” Werner said. “I’m just lucky. I’m just lucky.”
He did not even spend the night in the hospital.
Ike Werner has upgraded to a full face shield since this photo was taken. However, he didn’t get a neck guard.
Between being cut from the skates and ultimately returning home to his wife’s long embrace, Werner’s death brought him into contact with five different highly trained medical professionals.
Every single one of them told him he was lucky to be walking out the door.
It has left him reflecting on all aspects of that day that will almost certainly stay with him for the rest of his life.
For starters, the weather was great that Sunday, and while on a walk with his newborn, he thought about skipping the hockey game altogether. What if he chose to stay home?
What if his team wasn’t missing a defenseman for that game and he was instead playing his normal position at forward?
What if he had gotten up and tried to rejoin the game instead of skating to the bench after getting cut? Would his body have been able to withstand the sustained exertion?
What if the cut is a little deeper or tilted in the other direction by a centimeter or two?
What if the Leafs were operating on their normal schedule that afternoon and the medical staff wasn’t still in the building to respond to his call for help?
“I thought I was going to die and they said, ‘You’re not going to die. You’re so lucky.’ And they settled on me,” Werner said. “I give them credit for making sure I was OK. At that point, I wasn’t bleeding that much, but if I had taken myself to the hospital who would have Who knows what would have happened?
“There was a lot of blood loss in the end.”
He doesn’t consider himself a religious or spiritual person, but he certainly has family and friends who believe that some greater power was looking out for him that day.
It was not easy to quiet his mind long enough to get comfortable sleep immediately after that situation, where Werner himself notes: “I had almost orphaned my child and my wife was about to be widowed.”
He expected to have the last spot inside the Maple Leafs dressing room when he arrived for Sunday’s rec league game.
He’s lucky he did.
“I’m not a Leafs fan – I’m a Calgary fan – but I’m just kidding, ‘I can be a Leafs fan now,'” Werner said. “Not from a team perspective, but from a behind-the-scenes perspective.”
(Photos courtesy of Ike Werner)
