Burnell out with concussion, again
As his teammates made the long trip to Sault Ste. Marie Thursday, Owen Burnell was stuck at home in Caledonia. Waiting. For now, it’s all he can do. For the second time this season, the Hamilton Bulldogs centre is sidelined with all the classic symptoms of a concussion — headaches, nausea, an unshakable feeling that something’s not right.
And the only thing that can cure him is time.
“I’ve just been taking it day by day, kind of just seeing,” he says.
“It happens.”
For Burnell, a hard-nosed 19-year-old with a five-foot-ten, 176-pound frame, the first blow came in early November on a night when the Bulldogs were in Windsor. Here’s how he remembers it:
He was carrying the puck and, as he cut across the blue line, decided to leave it for his linemate Isaac Nurse. A Spitfires defenceman was in front of him and closing in.
“I knew he was there, so I dropped it and I braced myself for the hit,” he says. “But he was way bigger than me and he caught me with his shoulder right in the chin.
“I could tell something was wrong.”
That was it, his first concussion, and it took weeks for the symptoms to subside.
“I’d get a lot of random headaches and get nauseous, and I was pretty sensitive to the light for the first little bit — screens.
“Even being outside driving was rough for the first week or so,” he says.
Eventually, though, he felt better and in early January he was well enough to get back on the ice.
For 13 games, everything was fine. Then it wasn’t.
Burnell, who earned a spot on the roster as a free agent to start the season, says he isn’t sure what happened. There was no big hit, nothing out of the ordinary.
He just knows that sometime after Mississauga’s visit a couple of weeks ago something changed. The symptoms returned.
“He’s a hard-working kid and for that to happen to him, you just feel bad,” says Bulldogs coach John Gruden, a former defenceman whose own career was cut short by a head injury a bit more than a decade ago.
“I know how much it stinks.” Gruden, who was playing for the Washington Capitals at the time, says he was already feeling a bit off when he was hit from the side in a game against the L.A. Kings. It was 2003, November.
“It’s one of those things you never think is going to happen,” he says. “Even when guys are sitting out with concussions, it’s like, yeah, whatever. Then it happens to you and you realize how bad it is when you have the symptoms.”
They stuck around for more than a year.
“It was a dark time. It’s not fun and I don’t wish it upon anybody,” he adds.
The one silver lining is that going through it helped Gruden understand head injuries and shaped the way he approaches the issue with his players. He never puts pressure on them, for instance, and he’s careful to avoid asking them how they feel.
“It kind of affects the healing process,” he explains. “You’ve just got to let time take its course. You’ve got to listen to the doctors, listen to the trainers and eventually you’re going to snap out of it.
“One thing I do tell the guys is you will feel better,” he adds. “There’s no question. That’s the good thing.”
Burnell isn’t naive. He understands the risks involved and that he has a life after hockey to consider.
But he also knows he can’t wait to get back into the lineup, back to playing the same way he always has. “Injuries are part of sports,” he says. “Obviously injuries to the head are a little more serious than others, but all I’m focused on is getting better and making sure I’m 100 per cent better and hopefully being back as soon as possible.”
NOTES: Robert Thomas will be back in action against the Soo Greyhounds on Friday, after serving a five-game slashing suspension. Look for him to line up between Matt Strome and
Ryan Moore . ... Waterdown native Austin McEneny will sit for two games after biting Moore on the hand when his Kitchener Rangers were in town last weekend. He is eligible to return Sunday.