AN ILLEGAL CHECK, A BROKEN NECK
Teen lucky he wasn’t paralyzed by hockey hit
James Orr got lucky, if you want to characterize a broken neck that way.
The 16-year-old hockey player from Beaconsfield was seriously injured last Wednesday after a vicious check from behind sent him crashing head first into the boards in the opening minute of a midget Triple-A game at the Dollard Civic Centre. Orr lay prone on the ice until he could be carefully removed on a flat board and rushed by ambulance to the Montreal Children’s Hospital where a CT scan revealed a broken vertebra in his neck.
Luckily for Orr, his spinal cord was not compromised by the fracture to his C-1 vertebra, which could have left him paralyzed.
“For sure, it could have been a lot worse,” said Orr, now fitted with a neck brace he’ll need to wear for six to eight weeks, if not longer.
While his season with the Lac St. Louis Lions has come to a premature end, the good news is that the 6-foot-2, 170-pound defenceman is expected to fully recover and resume his promising hockey career.
“Jimmy” Orr was drafted by both the Shawinigan Cataractes of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and the Chicago Steel of the United States Hockey League. American prep schools are also interested in the former Team Quebec blue-liner, but Orr will have to put his hockey dreams on hold to heal his neck injury, which requires mostly rest and doses of pain medication.
“It sucks that I’m going to miss the playoffs,” said Orr, who has yet to resume his Grade 11 classes at John Rennie High School.
The opponent who delivered the illegal hit, Guillaume Desmarais of Collège Antoine-Girouard Gaulois, was handed a 10-game suspension by the league on Tuesday.
Orr’s father said it is important the league send a strong message to deter other players from endangering opponents.
“He should be suspended for the rest of the year, including playoffs, and another 10 games next year,” John Orr said.
Although the Gaulois team captain and other team officials have reached out to James via social media, he has yet to receive an apology from the player who actually hit him.
Gaulois coach Martin Cadorette said his player had “no comment” at this time, but plans to apologize to Orr at some point. The coach said Desmarais was upset by the incident. “He didn’t intend to injure (Orr), it was an accident,” Cadorette said.
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the Orr incident is that it occurred only a week after a landmark court judgment in Quebec awarded a former midget hockey player $8 million in damages for an illegal hit six years ago.
It is considered the highest amount ever awarded in Canada for a case of hockey violence, and stemmed from a hit from behind in a 2010 game that not only ended Andrew Zaccardo’s hockey career, it also left him a quadriplegic.
Hockey Canada rules stipulate that checks from behind are illegal when “a player is intentionally pushed, bodychecked, high sticked, cross-checked or hit in any manner from behind.”
John Orr, founder of Ye Olde Orchard Pub Group, was in the arena for the Feb. 10 game when his son was drilled into the boards. In the harrowing moments that followed, the crowd fell silent as John made his way from the stands to ice level to check on his son.
John Orr saw plenty of injuries while playing football at Bishop’s University back in the 1980s, but when it’s your own son lying face down on the ice, a father reacts differently.
“I’m a positive guy, but the initial fear was extremely scary. To see James down and not moving, the worst goes through your mind,” he said.
Although James appeared to have some movement in his legs, he was quickly stabilized by Lions team trainer Sébastien Buna, who John Orr credits with doing a “fantastic job.”
John Orr breathed a sigh of relief to see his son was conscious and able to move his limbs.
“Until I had to call my wife, Sharon, who was not at the game, my emotions were in check,” he said “That was hard. I really fell apart more the next day. I had to call family ... tell my mom,” Orr said, his voice cracking. “We were both crying.” John Orr now knows things could’ve been much worse, even tragic.
“If the vertebra was displaced, it would have meant surgery,” he said. “If it had been the C-2 vertebra, there would have been paralysis. That’s what a first responder told me.”
With players and fans distraught about what had transpired on the ice, the ref cancelled the game.
Lions head coach Jon Goyens had to console his shaken players.
“I had several veterans in my office crying afterward,” Goyens said.
“How do they continue their season now?
“What about the mental scars left with those guys, the next time they have to go into a corner?” the coach said. “I don’t think that part is discussed enough either, the mental aspect of it all.”
While James Orr walked out of hospital that same night, Zaccardo was not so lucky in 2010. He never walked again.
Juxtaposed next to his son’s fortuitous outcome, John Orr has no plans to take legal action against the player who broke his son’s neck.
“I’m not suing anyone” he said. “If it was long-term disability, I guess the jury would still be out. James will be fine. I feel really lucky.”
The tragic Zaccardo case offers perspective to fathers like John Orr, who remarked: “That (Zaccardo) kid would give back those 8 million bucks (to walk again). So would I, and so would anybody else.”
When the Lions held their 40th anniversary game last Friday, James was introduced among the VIPs in attendance and received a standing ovation from the home crowd.
If the vertebra was displaced, it would have meant surgery. If it had been the C-2 vertebra, there would have been paralysis.