MacArthur’s career in doubt after another concussion
MacArthur’s career in jeopardy after suffering concussion in scrimmage
A standout baseball pitcher, Jose Fernandez, dies in a boating accident.
A CFL player, Mylan Hicks, is shot to death in Calgary.
Life is beyond fragile, as if we needed reminders beyond the nightly newscast.
What touches home is closest to home. On Sunday, the Canadian Tire Centre was alive with the Ottawa Senators Fan Fest, a full day of activities built around hockey practices and a scrimmage.
The mood was light as we took our seats inside, watching the early minutes of a scrimmage between Team Red and Team White. Among the veterans on the red team were forwards Clarke MacArthur, Chris Neil and Derick Brassard.
A puck goes into the red team corner and after MacArthur plays it, he is just about to turn up ice when he is blindsided by white team defenceman Patrick Sieloff. The hit is high, to MacArthur’s head, and MacArthur suffers a second head blow when he rattles off the boards. He lies on his back on the ice, his arms flung up over his head. Minutes pass before he is helped to his feet and off the ice, his face screwed up in anguish.
Once we recognize No. 16, we share the feeling of centre Kyle Turris as he would describe it later, “sick to my stomach.”
A pall is cast over the scrimmage, the fun is gone from Fan Fest.
MacArthur, as most people in the arena know, missed almost the entire 2015-16 season with a concussion he suffered last October in Columbus. Sunday’s injury, confirmed to be a concussion by general manager Pierre Dorion, was MacArthur’s fourth in about a year-and-a-half.
A husband and father of two young children, a boy and a girl, MacArthur and his family suffered horribly last season while he dealt with a range of symptoms. For long periods he had an extreme sensitivity to light. He couldn’t play with his kids. The slightest bit of activity brought the symptoms back all over again, until he slowly improved over time.
Cleared to play before the season ended, MacArthur, 31, opted to stay out of the lineup. He rested, trained and skated.
When he found out he was starting camp alongside Brassard and Ryan on one of Ottawa’s most promising lines, he joked — always the one-liners — that he should skip major portions of the season more often if it’s going to work out so beautifully.
And now, three days into training camp his season, if not his career, is in doubt.
That MacArthur is one of the most beloved players in Ottawa’s room was evident by the reaction to the Sieloff hit. Ryan, a goal scorer not a fighter, instantly jumped Sieloff and started whaling on him, asking him what the (expletive) he was doing.
Incredibly, Sieloff was allowed to stay in the scrimmage and it wasn’t long before Neil, the Senators enforcer, went after him at the other end of the ice. Brassard jumped in as well, before they got the players separated and sent Sieloff off the ice for his own good.
The rest of the scrimmage was played in slow-motion, or so it seemed, players unable to focus on the play when they were thinking about the well-being of MacArthur.
Dorion was close to tears, his voice quavering, as he spoke about his left winger.
“He’s such a good guy, and such a big part of the team,” Dorion said.
Kyle Turris and Dion Phaneuf were visibly shaken when they took up their roles as leaders to speak about their teammate.
Phaneuf and MacArthur are family, beyond the metaphorical sense of the word. Phaneuf ’s mother was a MacArthur, and Clarke and Dion are distant cousins. They were also boyhood pals in Alberta, and have played with or against each other since the age of 10.
Of course, they were teammates on the Toronto Maple Leafs before MacArthur signed with the Senators as a free agent in 2013. Phaneuf joined the Senators in a mid-season trade last February.
“First and foremost, I’m worried about him, his family and his wellbeing,” Phaneuf said.
We see these hockey heroes on TV, we draft them into our fantasy pools, insert them in our video game rosters.
At these moments, when grown men are close to weeping over the implications of a man down, a man who has suffered greatly and could be on the precipice of something worse, we are reminded they are people.
Feeling, caring people who happen to take enormous risks every time they step on the ice.
For those with myriad concussions the risks are greater. A training camp scrimmage might seem innocuous, but can be treacherous with kids out to prove how tough and physical they are.
Sieloff, a 22-year-old defenceman with one NHL game on his resume, took out his man high and hard without leaving his feet.
Acquired in a June trade with the Calgary Flames for Alex Chiasson, Sieloff might not have known the player was MacArthur. We can’t be certain because the Senators did not make Sieloff available for comment.
Head coach Guy Boucher says he doesn’t want to view the “dark side” of the possibilities at the moment, and so must we all be hopeful, even as we consider the fragility of the human condition.