Owie!

Last night while watching the Red Wings play--they won their seventh straight game!--I saw something that I had never seen in all the years I have been following hockey. In the second period, one of the Wings' players, Jason Williams, was coming around the back of the Oilers' net, trying to score. He was watching one of the Oilers and didn't see another one coming at him. The player he didn't see, came in and hit him in the face with his shoulder--it was a legal check--and Williams went flying through the air and landed on his face onto the ice. And he just laid there on the ice, not moving. Then, of course, all hell broke loose as doctors, trainers, medics, etc, went to see how badly he was injured. There was quite a bit of blood on the ice, but all that could be seen were the people surrounding him. It was quite scary and tense for several minutes. After the stretcher was brought out, the camera managed to show him moving his left foot--at least this proved he wasn't paralyzed and was conscious. An ambulance was brought right up to the ice and they took him off with the stretcher. As they were moving toward the ambulance, he waved to the crowd, indicating that he wasn't as bad as it looked. He was brought to a hospital for some tests and stitches and he will be fine. He is expected to miss a couple of games before returning to play.

As I said, I am so surprised that this is the first time I have seen anything so frightening while watching a game. I started watching hockey before the rule changes--back when a 'good' hockey game included at least one fight...WITH blood. The game today is so much less aggressive--but, then, the whole incident had absolutely nothing to do with a fight or any wrong-doing on anyone's part. Even though I don't in any way believe that athletes are worth the enormous salaries they get, I guess there just is no amount of money that is worth the kind of injury this player could have sustained in last night's game. Jason Williams is only 26 years old.