Right place, critical time
He says he felt no panic.
Everyone else on the bench was distressed, of course. Sticks and gloves were flying onto the ice to get the referee’s attention. Hamilton Bulldogs players were jumping out there, too. Some raced for a stretcher. The broadcasters doing the game had more than a hint of angst in their voices. Those in the area were stunned and upset. But, as J.P. Laciak looked over and saw the head coach lying face down and motionless behind the bench, he was somehow calm.
“It looks horrifying,” the team’s athletic therapist says. “But that’s where the training comes in.”
Sometime over the past couple of days you surely heard about what happened in the Bulldogs’ second game of the season. With 19.8 seconds remaining in a 4-2 win over Barrie on Saturday, coach Dave Matsos simply collapsed. He was ultimately able to get to his feet with assistance and make it to a stretcher. Several hours later, the Bulldogs said he was “doing well and in good spirits.”
On Monday afternoon, Matsos was released from a Barrie hospital after undergoing tests. The cause of the collapse hasn’t t been publicly released, if it’s known yet. Team president Steve Staios says no new information is available at this point nor is there any time frame for an answer. But in the wake of the scary situation, the 34-year-old Laciak found himself the subject of effusive praise for his calm in what sure appeared to be a dicey situation. He still sounds almost serene even as he recounts the story. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, he was watching the play in the corner. Suddenly, behind him chaos happened.
“I was watching the play and all of a sudden I heard all this yelling,” Laciak says. “At first, I didn’t really know what was going on.”
What he did know as he looked over and saw Matsos is that the coach hadn’t been hit with something and hadn’t suffered any kind of head or neck injury. So he immediately flipped him over and prepared to begin CPR, maybe use the defibrillator or even administer oxygen. But Matsos wasn’t gasping for breath or showing other signs of distress. Seeing this, he was able to rule out a heart attack within about five seconds.
Then Laciak recognized something. Several years ago while working as athletic therapist for the provincial Junior A Oakville Blades, a player on the other team had suffered a seizure. He’d been the first one to respond that day. This looked similar. As he was making assessments about what’s happening, the players were still clearing the bench and folks in the arena either started craning to see what was going on or leaving their seats. Lacaciak saw none of it. Tunnel vision had kicked in.
“I don’t care if people are panicking,” he says. “Because I don’t even notice them.”
He says Matsos’s heart rate was fine and he never stopped breathing. To an untrained person, he says it certainly could’ve look like a life or death situation, but he never felt that way. It helped that he took kinesiology at Western University followed by athletic therapy at Sheridan College. It also helped that he had seven years of experience including time with the Blades and Saint John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. He’s seen stuff. More than anything, it helped that every other year at league meetings the athletic therapists go over situations exactly like this.
They’ve prepared for this and practised this. Maybe not this exactly, but close enough. He stabilized the coach’s head, prevented him from doing accidental harm to himself and made sure he was getting air.
“You go into this mode you have to hit your check marks,” he says. “It was pretty much to the book.”
It seemed much longer but the entire episode took less than a minute. Forty five seconds would probably be closer. By this time the paramedics, there are some at every Ontario Hockey League arena, were moving toward the bench and the doctor (there’s one of them at every game, too) was there. As the Bulldogs players got onto the bus after the game, Lacaciak stepped on board to give them an encouraging update. Their coach was coherent and had walked on his own steam to the stretcher. He was in no imminent danger.
The truth is, this could have been much worse. Detroit Red Wings defenceman Jiri Fisher nearly died back in 2005 when he had a heart attack on the bench. In 2014, Dallas Stars’ forward Rich Peverley collapsed on the bench due to a cardiac issue. Two years ago, Craig Cunningham of the American Hockey League’s Tucson Roadrunners collapsed on the ice and nearly died when his heart failed. One of his legs had to be amputated in hospital to prevent infection. And in 2008, New York Rangers’ prospect Alexei Cherepanov died in a Kontinental Hockey League game when his heart failed. .
Laciak says he doesn’t want to have to face situations like those. Nobody would. But he feels capable of doing what he needs to if it happens.
“That’s why I’m here,” he says.