Death of St. Luke’s hockey player an unimaginable tragedy

“Listen,” one of the Hartford Whalers said as he pointed to the ice after practice several years ago.

One of the Winter Olympic women’s medalists on tour was working on her program before an appearance later that night at the XL Center. As she glided effortlessly, there barely was a sound.

“Now think about most of us out there,” the NHL player said. “Clump, clump, clump. Incredible.”

It is difficult, almost unimaginable, to think of a skate blade instrumental in such grace and beauty as also capable of causing such physical harm and even death.

What happened Thursday at Hartong Rink in Greenwich is every parent’s worst nightmare.

What happened during the junior varsity ice hockey game between Brunswick School and St. Luke’s School is a tragedy no one there will ever be able to unsee.

There is so much to say and so little to say.

God bless Teddy Balkind and his family.

God help everyone at Hartong rink.

That seems like the most appropriate.

According to the Greenwich police on Thursday night, a player had fallen to the ice during normal play and another player who was nearby was unable to stop and collided with him. The downed player was rushed to Greenwich Hospital and died as a result of the injury.

On Friday, St. Luke’s identified him as Teddy Balkind, a 10th grader at St. Luke’s of New Canaan.

In a letter to school alumni, Brunswick Head of School Thomas Philip wrote that Balkind’s neck was accidentally cut by a skate. He wrote that Teddy’s

father was present and that Balkind was treated in the Greenwich Hospital ER and operated on.

“Yesterday, we lost a precious young man in a tragic accident,” St. Luke’s Head of School Mark Davis said.

“We are devastated,” Philip said. “An unimaginable tragedy.”

“Teddy skated for the New Canaan Winter Club throughout his youth hockey career and was known to all as an all-around incredible young man, son and brother,” the New Canaan police department said in a statement.

On Thursday night, Sam Rosen on the Rangers’ MSG broadcast passed along condolences. Friday, they continued. As has become a rising tradition in the hockey world during times of tragedy and great trial, hockey sticks have been placed outside, on the porch.

There are few greater tributes.

From Port Huron Flags

of the IHL to the Flyers and Whalers of the NHL, I spent the first half of my 44-year sports writing career as a hockey reporter. It is a great game played by great people. The work ethic and the camaraderie of the game is second to none. The locker room vocabulary and nicknames are nothing fascinating, right down to calling writers who cover the team Scoop or Dickie (after Dickie Dunn from Slapshot.) Yet underlying it is a knowledge that hockey is a fierce, fast game of collision. There are dangers in every corner.

Yet in covering more than 1,000 hockey games from

Saginaw, Michigan to Ingalls Rink at Yale, I’d never seen what happened at Brunswick School. Broken legs, broken arms, broken noses, broken jaws, concussions, players hit in the face by pucks, and too many stitches to count? Absolutely. But never this.

There are two such accidents in NHL history.

In March 1989, Steve Tuttle of the Blues and defenseman Uwe Krupp of the Sabres crashed into Clint Malarchuk’s goal crease. Tuttle’s skate blade severed Malarchuk’s neck. Sabres trainer Jim Pizzutelli, a former combat medic who served in Vietnam, is credited with saving his life.

The second accident also happened in Buffalo in February 2008. Florida’s

Olli Jokinen was in on the forecheck and battled with Buffalo’s Clarke MacArthur along the rear boards. As Jokinen lost his balance and fell, his skate came up and caught teammate Richard Zednick in the neck. Emergency surgery was performed, but doctors said his life was not in immediate jeopardy because the artery was not severed and did not recess into his neck. He did miss the rest of the season.

What happened Thursday night was worse. I remember back to 2005 when Antwoine Key of Eastern Connecticut collapsed at Worcester State and died of what was later determined to be hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I remember sitting with coach Bill Geitner and Antwoine’s

long-time girlfriend Michele Walker, who said he had called her from the locker room before the game to whisper that he loved her. I remember thinking this was the saddest thing in the world.

And then UConn football star Jasper Howard was stabbed to death on campus in October 2009 and the sadness was all over again.

But this, the skate to the neck, the loss of such a young life, and the trauma of the players, everyone there.

God bless Teddy Balkind and his family.

God help everyone at Hartong rink.