A game of chance, and chances
Former NHLer Wojtek Wolski has taken a long journey, one interrupted by a broken neck, to discover his love for hockey
“Going over (to the KHL) really kind of allowed me to have a fresh look at (hockey). It opened my eyes.” WOJTEK WOLSKI ON A FRESH START
When he thinks back to the terrifying moments that came after he crashed head-first into the boards on that October night in Russia, Wojtek Wolski remembers fearing the worst.
“I remember thinking I was paralyzed,” Wolski said in a recent interview with the Star.
And when you watch the video of the incident in question, clipped from the third period of an otherwise unremarkable game in which Wolski was playing for the KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk last season, it’s easy enough to fathom a career-ending disaster. Skating hard in pursuit of a puck, Wolski lost his footing and slid on his stomach toward the rink’s sidewall. As he went, an opposing player fell on his torso, essentially blocking Wolski from using his arms to absorb the impact. Out of control at high speed, Wolski’s helmeted head took the brunt of the blow instead. The memory of the aftermath remains vivid.
“It’s like you hear these bells just going off in your head telling you to move — to move your hands, to move your feet,” Wolski said. “It’s like the bells just got louder and louder and louder, until I started moving my hands and feet. And then it was like, ‘OK, that’s a good sign.’ It’s actually insane how the body works. It has mechanisms to protect you in those situations. It’s fascinating what happens.”
It’s fascinating, too, to hear the details of how the 31-year-old Wolski found his way from that scary scenario to a resumption of his athletic career. Stretchered off a rink with a broken neck nine months ago, he recently took time out from his GTA-based training regimen to sign a two-year contract to play for Kunlun Redstar, a KHL club based in Shanghai.
In between, Wolski spent 10 weeks in a neck brace, endured countless hours of inactivity and considerable pain, and more than once pondered the end of his playing days — this before a successful surgery repaired his damaged vertebrae.
His two-year deal with Redstar is the latest chapter in a remarkable Toronto hockey story.