Blue Jackets playing it safe with Laine’s return
Patrik Laine feels ready to rejoin the Blue Jackets' lineup.
The Finnish forward said he's felt ready to return from an oblique strain for “a week and a half,” but five postponed games during a COVID-19 outbreak contributed to his delayed return.
Laine was injured Nov. 3 in Denver and is almost two weeks beyond his initial estimated return of 4-to-6 weeks, which includes time spent in Finland mourning the death of his father plus the NHL'S shutdown of the Blue Jackets' facilities prior to an extended holiday break.
He participated in a third straight practice Tuesday, skating with center Alexandre Texier and Jakub Voracek, but didn't work with either of the team's power-play groups. That could be an indicator that Laine is not a shoo-in to play Thursday against the Nashville Predators at Nationwide Arena, assuming that game isn't postponed.
“We've had a couple breaks here,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. “He was away with the family issue there, with the loss of his father, which was hard. He missed some time, and he missed some time with his injury. He missed some time again with this
practicing the single-leg and the arm bar nearly every day for half his life.
“The thing about wrestling is, it's not just about the best athlete or the most skilled guy,” Fickell explained recently. “It's really the guy that dedicates the most, that works the hardest who's going to be the best in the long run. Guys who grind their butts off and work their craft, they have a chance to be better than some of the others.”
It's not a stretch to extend the metaphor. You can stretch it to include, oh, a football game that occurs at 3:30 p.m. Friday. Alabama is favored by a couple of touchdowns to beat Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl, in the first national semifinal. The Crimson Tide is legendary; the Bearcats are “feisty.” Unless they're scrappy, plucky, pesky, gritty or spunky.
Do the Bearcats work harder than ‘Bama? Doubtful, given the Tide's coach is Nick Saban. Will they enter the game confident and prepared, with zero tolerance for losing?
Look at their coach. What do you think?
Fickell remembers the losses. Wrestlers by nature own an encyclopedic recall of their matches. An 85-year-old former wrestler might lose his keys every couple minutes, but he can tell you who beat him in the sectional finals his junior year. Fickell recalls losing twice in the district meet his freshman year. The second loss, a wrestle-back to a kid from Perrysburg, kept Fickell from qualifying for the state tournament.
Since he was small, Fickell had two goals: To win an Olympic gold medal and to be a four-time state champion, following the lead of former Desales star Mark Zimmer. Zimmer was the first Ohio high schooler to win four state titles.
Fickell would have to settle for three. “To this day, I've never set foot in Perrysburg High School,” he said.
He lost his only college match, to Penn State's Kerry Mccoy. Mccoy was a senior, twice a national champ and later, twice an Olympian. Fickell was a freshman football player who'd just returned from playing in the Rose Bowl. Mccoy won 12-2. “I wasn't quite ready for biting off the national champ,” said Fickell.
The match was on Super Bowl Sunday.
“We had a Super Bowl party at my apartment,” recalled Fickell. “I never came out of my room.”
Said Luke's younger brother Michael, “It was a humbling experience for him. I'm sure he has used that to keep him grounded.”
It was the last match Luke ever wrestled. Unless you count a roll-around he had with Michael when Michael was a senior all-american wrestler at Penn. Luke was four years older, 40 pounds heavier and a bit out of shape. Mike took down big bro. At least that's how Mike recalled it.
“I took him down. He was more mad than anything. It turned into a fistfight,” said Mike.
“Didn't happen,” said Luke. “I wouldn't officially say that was a takedown. It might have been as close as he ever got. I have no recollection of it being an official takedown.”
Fickell said the losses his freshman year, and the loss to Mccoy, inform his thinking to this day. They still drive him. “The greatest thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “They made me who I am.”
Who is he? How has wrestling defined him?
When he was 6, he tagged along with his uncle Wayne Hiles to practice at Watterson, where Wayne coached. Luke
weighed 100 pounds at age 8. He started wrestling the 98-pounders on the high school team. Wayne would sign Luke up for tournaments in the offseason. “He'd say, ‘We entered you in two age groups. The age group above you and the age group above that,' “Fickell remembered.
By the time he was a freshman at Desales, Fickell was better than anyone on his team. A returning senior captain who'd wrestled in the state meet the year before lost two challenges in two days to Luke. The guy told the coach he'd drop a weight class rather than not wrestle varsity. He ended up qualifying for state at the lower weight.
The problem became finding competition for Luke to wrestle in practice. Hiles brought in former champions from Desales and Ohio State. He even grappled with Luke himself. For 30 minutes every day after practice, Wayne and Luke drilled single-leg snatch takedowns and worked Dan Gable's arm-bar series.
“Do it again, do it again, do it again,” Hiles told his nephew.
Remember Fickell's match with Ray Edmonds? Single-leg, arm bar, adios.
“No matter what it took to win, he found a way to do it,” Hiles said.
Hiles likes to tell the story of Luke's loss as a freshman to Kevin Randleman, who'd go on to win a national title at
Ohio State. “I'm never losing again,” Uncle Wayne recalls Luke saying afterward.
Except that's not quite true. Luke lost to Randleman, then twice in the districts. Good story, though, and not entirely inaccurate.
“The mindset, the work ethic, the tenacity. He's applying that to his career and getting that across to his players,” said Mike Fickell.
Mike's not just being nice. He is, after all, the little brother. He also recalls enjoying eating ice cream in front of Luke when Luke was trying to cut weight for wrestling his freshman year at Desales. Mike also remembers Luke had a habit of overturning card tables whenever he was losing a card or board game to his siblings.
“Being a good loser isn't a strength” of mine, said Luke. “I trained that if I could win by a point, I wanted to win by 10. I'd get mad if a guy scored a point on me.”
Not many did. One was Stephan Terebieniec, from Lakewood St. Edward. Terebiniec was a state champ the same year as Fickell; both were seniors, Terebieniec in Division I, Fickell in D II. Luke beat him twice in the regular season, but didn't pin him, which pains Fickell still.
Fickell beat Terebieniec 12-3 and 10-2. Terebieniec said his only points came when Fickell let him off the mat, so he could take Terebieniec again. “He'd beat the crap outta you, pick you up, then beat the crap outta you again,” Terebieniec said.
In the summers, the two roomed together while wrestling for the Junior National team. Fickell won two of those titles, too. “He wasn't brutal, just very intense and very skilled,” Terebieniec said. “He owned quite a bit of refuse to lose.
“He was a regular guy. That's what I loved about him. That's one of the keys to major success, remaining grateful and humble and letting your results speak for you.”
Fickell will never get another shot at Kerry Mccoy, Kevin Randleman or that kid from Perrysburg. Or from the fourtime state champ Zimmer, who sadly died last year, of ALS.
Fickell gets a shot at Alabama on Friday, though. And if UC wins, a shot at another national title. Would that be as good as beating Kevin Randleman?
Fickell chuckled. “We'll have to wait and see,” he said.