Ottawa Citizen

SENATORS DID RIGHT BY MACARTHUR

Veteran may not like being shelved over his concussion­s, but it’s the right call

- WAYNE SCANLAN

So unpredicta­ble is the fallout from sport concussion­s, it is difficult to separate good news from bad.

Clarke MacArthur, beloved veteran Ottawa Senators winger, has been shut down by the hockey club before he plays a single game in this evaporatin­g season. Thus ends, for now, his valiant attempt to return from a string of concussion­s (four in a span of one-anda-half years).

Doctors — including some independen­t of the hockey club — won’t clear MacArthur to play, and God bless them for their integrity and honesty (not to mention fear of a muddy conscience). We’re long past the time — or should be — when doctors and coaches send players right back into the field of play after they get their “bell rung.”

For MacArthur the profession­al hockey player, this is the worst possible news, absolutely devastatin­g.

Yet for MacArthur the person — loving husband to Jessica and father to daughter Emery and son Gus — this might turn out to be the best news, given the circumstan­ces.

No one who watched him lying motionless in the corner of the Canadian Tire Centre rink on Sept. 25 during a training-camp scrimmage, before being helped off the ice by teammates Chris Neil and Dion Phaneuf, wants to relive that scene. MacArthur was hit into the boards by defenceman Patrick Sieloff, a moment that triggered the end of his season, if not his career.

What no one can appreciate, beyond the 31-year-old MacArthur himself, is how much personal capital, his own sweat and toil, he has invested in his comeback attempt. For months, once the pressure on the sides of his head allowed it, he’s been working off-ice on his conditioni­ng. He would skate on a fresh sheet of ice, often pushed by player developmen­t coach Shean Donovan, long before the rest of his teammates.

Even when he joined the team on the practice ice, he would stay after for extra skating and skills work.

Well on his way to a second career in broadcasti­ng or standup comedy, MacArthur would later make some kind of wisecrack in the dressing room that would get us all laughing. I’ve rarely seen an injured player, who last played on Oct. 14, 2015, draw a media scrum like MacArthur.

He wanted so desperatel­y to be a part of a compelling Senators rebound this season. And to live up to the five-year, US$23.25million contract he signed, extending from 2015 through the 2019-20 NHL season.

“I want to start earning my paycheque,” he said one morning, after a bag skate.

He can’t be accused of anything except giving his all.

At least MacArthur has his guaranteed contract. In football, injuries can end a career — and income — in a moment. Head injuries are prominent in that sport, as well.

Reporters who have covered hockey in the past decade or so start to feel they’re on the concussion beat. In Ottawa alone, the stories of Jesse Winchester, Robin Lehner, MacArthur and others ring out.

In December, Gov. Gen. David Johnston held a concussion conference that discussed the issue of brain injury in all sports, not just hockey. The theme: “We can do better.”

Brent Sullivan, assistant coach of the University of Ottawa GeeGees men’s hockey team, said the same thing in an interview last week, when he spoke about his life limitation­s after dealing with as many as 14 concussion­s. Most were suffered in junior hockey, but Sullivan, 27, also endured a car crash concussion that sent him spiralling into symptoms of anxiety and depression.

NHL players have helped raise the profile for brain injuries, including research and awareness. When Sidney Crosby suffered a major concussion during the 2011 Winter Classic in Pittsburgh, it launched a thousand stories on concussion­s in sport.

As recently as last October, the greatest player in the game was again sidelined, this time briefly, with a minor concussion.

We were reminded that no two concussion­s are alike. I spoke with Jeff Skinner on Nov. 1 when the Carolina Hurricanes were in Ottawa. Skinner, 24, has suffered multiple concussion­s, yet said the most recent one, last season, brought much milder symptoms than his previous ones.

Unlike NHL stars, amateur players like Sullivan have no guaranteed contracts. Sullivan suffered the double whammy of no pro deal in the future, combined with an inability to get his university degree because of long-term concussion symptoms that robbed him of his ability to focus and read. He wonders what tomorrow brings.

As much as this setback hurts MacArthur — who only wants to play the game he loves and to live up to the faith the Senators showed in him when he came here as a free agent from Toronto — he might one day see it differentl­y.

Whatever else comes of MacArthur’s determinat­ion to return to the NHL, the Senators are wisely keeping him out of harm’s way in the immediate future. No player could welcome that decision. But a father and husband, and his family, down the road, could be grateful.

 ?? WAYNE CUDDINGTON FILES ?? Clarke MacArthur, right, has suffered four concussion­s in a year and a half. The 31-year-old winger is now out for the rest of the season.
WAYNE CUDDINGTON FILES Clarke MacArthur, right, has suffered four concussion­s in a year and a half. The 31-year-old winger is now out for the rest of the season.
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