It was in the Toronto Maple Leafs locker room that Ike Warner first convinced himself that he would survive.
Earlier this month, the 37-year-old looked back and saw Maple Leafs forward Nick Robertson being treated after his throat was accidentally cut by a skate blade during a Sunday afternoon recreational league game at the NHL team’s training facility. , the horrific experience became surreal. in the adjacent room.
“That was my visual,” Werner told Competitor. “He is receiving treatment.”
As Werner pulled into the Ford Performance Center that afternoon, he noticed the luxury cars behind the gated area of the parking lot. Zamboni also resurfaced the ice earlier than usual, so he figured the Maple Leafs would be skating on Rink 2 before his Prestige Worldwide team faced off against the Jagrbombs in the True North Hockey League.
That fact became even more important to him when he suffered a gruesome cut in the third round of the tournament and urgently sought help, only to find himself under the influence of Maple Leafs athletic therapist Paul Ayotte and Care of Neil Davidson.
“They’re great,” Werner said. “They were very calm, if you will, which helped keep me grounded because I was spiraling.”
Even after former NHL player Adam Johnson died while playing professionally in England in October, no professional league player could reasonably imagine finding themselves in such a situation.
The tragedy brought awareness to the need for more cut-resistant gear in the sport, and athletes at all levels began wearing them. Werner recalled discussions with his men’s league team last fall and said he even tried to purchase a neck brace at the time, but was unsuccessful.
As one of the older players in a fairly competitive league, he’s more cautious than most when it comes to equipment, wearing wrist guards, cut-resistant socks, and, before that, goggles (pictured above) After that, I recently switched to a helmet. Full face mask.
“After Adam Johnson died, you couldn’t buy a neck brace,” Werner said. “I tried. Now, that was months ago and I could have continued, but didn’t.
“One of the things I said to my wife was, ‘This is a recreational league. It’s not that fast. The equipment isn’t up to this level. The skates aren’t that sharp. This doesn’t happen in a recreational league.’
Unless it actually happens.
NHL player poll: Why 78% think neck braces should not be mandatory ⤵️ https://t.co/mIvJtEuyGh
— National Hockey League (@TheAthleticNHL) February 2, 2024
Werner doesn’t remember what happened. His teammates were not immediately identified.
In fact, it wasn’t until Werner League conveners sent a clip from a 360-degree camera mounted inside the arena on Tuesday night that a clear picture of what had happened was revealed.
The play looks about as harmless as they come. Werner stood in the slot in front of his own net, and as his opponent approached the puck, Werner poked a loose puck, ultimately knocking him off balance. As his opponent fell to the ice, his right skate kicked up and caught Werner’s facemask.
Incredibly, the force of the impact did not knock Werner down, although he still suffered severe bruising to his upper chest and neck area a week after the February 4 incident. It also opened an incision that required 12 stitches to close.
The film footage confirms the only aspect of the sequence that Werner clearly recalled: that he picked up the dropped stick after the collision and slid to the bench under his own power.
What’s most striking about his memory is that he felt little pain after the game and didn’t seem to bleed. He said it felt like a minor scrape or jersey burn. But when he returned to the bench, an official told him he needed to leave the playing field immediately.
Werner’s old teammate Jack McVay accompanied Werner to the locker room after briefly understanding the situation his good friend was dealing with.
“When you see his injuries and you realize he’s still alive, it’s just shocking,” McVeigh said. “He takes his hands off his neck and you’re like, ‘Oh. Holy God — —”
“I don’t even know what was going through my head other than ‘You have to deal with this.'”
It was only after returning to the dressing room and Werner caught a glimpse of the injury in the mirror that he lost his cool. According to McVeigh, he immediately turned pale.
There was a brief discussion about calling an ambulance and heading to the arena’s lobby until Werner remembered the Maple Leafs were in the building. He caught the eye of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment photographer Armando Caballero, who was standing nearby after covering practice. Caballero started banging on the back door of the dressing room until it opened and Werner was let inside.
He was immediately attended to by Maple Leafs medical staff Davidson and Ayotte, who applied pressure to the neck and examined the injury. After determining Werner needed to go to the hospital for further testing before getting stitches, they eventually sutured the wound shut with Steri Strips and bandaged him.
Just as importantly, they reassured us that everything would be fine.
“They’re great,” Werner said. “Ask me some questions: ‘Are you breathing normally?’ ‘Can you swallow?’ ” Things like that rule out anything serious, serious.
“They would say ‘You’re lucky to be alive.'”
Under normal circumstances, they probably wouldn’t be helping out the injured in a recreational league game at 4 p.m.
The Maple Leafs typically practice at noon, but didn’t skate until 2:45 p.m. that day because the team was returning from the All-Star break and league rules dictated that no mandatory activities would be scheduled before 3 p.m.
Werner, the father of a three-month-old, went to St. Joseph’s Hospital alone, sending his wife only a brief message to say he had been cut and would be fine soon. He was immediately admitted to a hospital bed and received stitches by 5.15pm – just an hour after leaving the ice room.
Because the skate that scratched him was very sharp, the wound was clean and easy to suture. After administering a local anesthetic, Werner began to bleed profusely while doctors checked the depth of the wound. He had to throw away the shirt he was wearing in favor of one McVeigh had given him at the hospital.
However, this is good news. A CT scan showed the skate had cut into the muscle but not penetrated it, so surgery was not needed.
An emergency room doctor told Werner that she played hockey at a high level for fun and vowed not to return to the ice without putting herself in a neck brace.
“It missed my vocal cords, my esophagus, my arteries, my veins, everything,” Werner said. “I’m just lucky. I’m just lucky.”
He didn’t even stay overnight in the hospital.
Since this photo was taken, Ike Werner has upgraded to a full face mask. But he couldn’t find the neck brace.
Werner’s brush with death brought him into contact with five highly trained medical professionals, from the moment he was cut on a skate to the moment he finally returned home to a long hug from his wife.
Each one of them told him he was lucky to be able to get out of the house.
It made him reflect on all the what-ifs of the day that will almost certainly stay with him for the rest of his life.
First, the weather was unusually nice that Sunday, and while walking with his newborn, he considered skipping the hockey game altogether. What if he chooses to stay home?
What if his team doesn’t lack defenders in that game and he plays his normal forward position?
What if he stood up after being cut and tried to rejoin the game instead of sliding to the bench? Can his body handle the constant exertion?
What if the cut was a little deeper or tilted a centimeter or two in the other direction?
What if the Maple Leafs played their normal schedule that afternoon and paramedics weren’t in the building to answer his call for help?
“I thought I was going to die, and they said, ‘You’re not going to die. You’re lucky. They healed me,'” Werner said. “I believe they were just making sure I was okay. At that point, I wasn’t bleeding that much, but if I had gone straight to the hospital, who knows what would have happened?
“There was a lot of blood at the end.”
He did not consider himself a religious or spiritual person, but his family and friends certainly believed a greater power was looking out for him that day.
Werner himself noted: “I almost made my children orphans and my wife a widower.” It was not easy to calm his mind long enough to fall asleep after this happened.
When he takes part in Sunday’s rec league game, the last place he expects to find is the Maple Leafs’ locker room.
He’s lucky he did.
“I’m not a Leafs fan — I’m a Calgary fan — but I just joked, ‘I might be a Leafs fan now,'” Werner said. “Not from a team perspective, but from a behind-the-scenes perspective.”
(Photo courtesy of Ike Werner)
