‘AT PEACE’ WITH RETIREMENT
Dorsett will relish time with family
No one will ever wonder if Derek Dorsett left it all on the ice.
Every night, for better or worse, he poured out his insides for the game he loves. And for his teammates, too.
Turns out, being unafraid and spirited is one hell of a combo.
What Dorsett lacked in dangle, he made up with an unending appetite to devour hockey games. If there was a hit, he’d take it. If there was a fight, he’d throw. If there was a scrum, he’d be in the centre of it.
It’s not an easy way to forge an NHL career. But nothing about Dorsett’s career was easy. And that was true right up until his career’s premature ending with the Vancouver Canucks.
Dorsett only knew one way to play the game. “I know I scored some goals, but I always knew where I stood,” he said.
Even now, after the shock of retirement has been filtered with time, he has no regrets.
“I hated people saying I shouldn’t be fighting,” he said defiantly in the fabulously detailed letter he authored, one that covered his career tip to tail.
But how could any reasonable person not question it? He just had neck fusion surgery. Complications
were possible. How could anyone know how fighting would impact those potential complications?
He insists he wasn’t worried. His family, however, felt differently and he understood that.
“I’d never sensed it before in my career, or my life, that my family was worried about me,” Dorsett said. “But I could sense it in those moments, the times I would get in a fight. They’d ask ‘Hey, are you OK?’ I could sense they were worried. So (the retirement) was a relief for them. A relief for them, knowing I am going to be able to live a happy life.”
There was a lot at risk. When he went to Los Angeles to see his surgeon, Dr. Watkins. there were two neck bulges, one above and one below the fusion.
“If they got worse, they could have started pushing into my spinal cord,” he said. “It could have been bad. It could have been catastrophic.”
There’s no way of knowing, but he could have been a hit away from that catastrophe. It’s a thought that will stop you cold.
Fortunately for Dorsett, he knew enough to note signs of potential trouble. It began in the weeks leading into his final game. He had experienced tingling in his fingers once. It was dismissed because we all experience tingling at times, like when your foot “falls asleep.”
“There were times I’d get tightness, but I thought I was managing it well,” he said. “The morning I woke up in Philadelphia, though, I had an impingement.
“I really didn’t feel right. It was some of the similar symptoms. And some of the symptoms I knew to look for. I knew it wasn’t right.”
Dorsett must still go through a rehab. He suffers from soreness most days. It’s not easy for him to find a comfortable resting spot for his head, sometimes. He can wake up feeling great, and pain free, but later in the day that can change.
“I’m not out of the woodwork,” he said.
“I have to stay away from contact. I’m looking forward to rehabbing, getting healthy and living a healthy life.”
Sometimes life has a way of taking care of us, even when it hands us something unwanted.
On one hand, he was pulled from hockey when things couldn’t have been going better. He was playing more than he had in years. He was scoring. He was a trusted winger on the team’s shutdown line. It was a glorious run. And there were many reasons to try to keep that going as long as possible.
But he said there were no options when he met with Dr. Watkins. The decision to end his career was “cut and dry.”
If it wasn’t, if he could have played through it, he still wasn’t changing how he played the game. He would have hit and he would fought, just like he always did.
That will seem crazy to people who don’t play professional hockey. But to Dorsett, it was the only way it could be, the only way he knew.
“I 100 per cent understand why people didn’t think (I should fight),” he said. “I think that’s why a lot of people are relieved I’m not playing anymore. I would do it all over again. I wouldn’t change it one bit. But that’s why I’m at peace with this decision.
“Because even if there was a small chance I could come back, I was going to do the same thing. I was going to play the same way. It’s just in me.”
I could sense they were worried. So (the retirement) was a relief for them. A relief for them, knowing I am going to be able to live a happy life.