Wild GM: 'It's our duty to explore every avenue possible'
By George Johnson
Special to ESPN.com
Time, Dave King knows, can not erase, nor even fade, the memory.
"It's something none of us will ever, ever forget," the coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets is saying. "This tragedy happened in our building. We were all there. We saw the puck fly up over the glass."
As result, Columbus players are wearing in a tiny heart on the backs of their helmets the initials of a little girl they never met.
And, tragically, never will.
It is, for those inside Nationwide Arena at the time and happened to see the blur of events, a moment caught forever in time: The puck, shot by Blue Jackets center Espen Knutsen, glancing off the stick of Flame defenseman Derek Morris and shooting up into the stands, deflecting off a spectator and then striking 13-year-old Brittanie Cecil in the forehead.
After being hit, the eighth-grade student could be seen being helped by arena staff to an exit, a jacket held to her head. Brittanie died two days later.
"When we got to the rink in the morning and found out she'd passed away, we were all shocked; stunned," recalls King. "We didn't -- couldn't -- skate that day. The whole thing seemed so ... so ... unreal. It was a long week for the Blue Jackets; for the whole city of Columbus."
Monday at the Pengrowth Saddledome, the Flames and Jackets met again, nine days after the incident, a week following Cecil's death and two days following her funeral. Thoughts turned back to Brittanie, if they had ever left her.
"The guys, I think, handled it as well as could be expected," says King. "What happened couldn't help but be on their minds. It crushed Espo. You could tell. He was so subdued for a few days. It wasn't his fault. That was something we counseled him on. He was only shooting the puck like he had thousands of times before, but from his standpoint, he was involved. He was the one people were asking questions of.
"It was a fluke occurrence. But it happened. When terrible things happen you have to learn from them; try your utmost to make certain they never happen again."
King shakes his head slowly, sadly. "Devastating .. for everyone. You just feel such anguish for the family."
Cecil's death has prompted calls for new standards in safety for onlookers at hockey arenas, proposals ranging from installing netting behind the two goals -- where there is the most danger to spectators -- to fans themselves wearing helmets.
The NHL's minimum height requirement for protective glass behind the net is eight feet. Teams regularly warn spectators about the danger inherent with pucks flying into the crowd, and place cautions on scoreboards and the backs of tickets.
But in light of the tragedy in Columbus, is that near enough?
Dr. David Milzman, who worked as the first-aid doctor at the MCI Center in Washington for two NHL seasons, feels it's about time. Milzman was concerned enough by what he'd seen in his experiences to conduct a study of fan injuries at hockey games.
"I wouldn't say it was disturbing, but it was worrisome," Milzman told ESPN. "I've covered Redskins games for the spectators for seven or eight years and other than medical conditions we've never had injuries from anything on the field. Even baseball games you don't see this number of people with injuries presenting themselves to first aid.
"It's not a huge number but the number itself is more than most other sports. Now you don't have the death risk that you have in, say, a motor vehicle like a NASCAR or Indy where a car could go in the stands and kill 10 or 15 people and you don't have the problems with rioting in hockey like soccer stadium collapses. But for people walking in they read on the ticket, it's announced that they may get hit by a puck but nobody thinks about it.
"And unfortunately almost every game we wound up with somebody with an injury."
Milzman found that an average of 3-5 pucks went into the fans and struck spectators each game. Most of these incidents resulted in no injury or a very minor injury. Eight out of every 10 games resulted in someone requiring first aid or treatment, about half those needing suturing, laceration repair or suffering from bad bruising.
Others in a position to know are also concerned.
"It's a serious problem," head of the Canada Safety Council, Emile Therrien -- whose son Chris is a defenseman for the Philadelphia Flyers -- told the Canadian Press. "We need a new standard that should be developed by the Canadian Standards Association and we've asked the federal government to fund this and they said no.
"We're not talking about a ton of money. We're talking about addressing a health and public safety issue."
Data from Camden Yards baseball parks showed that five to six more balls enter the spectator area than pucks do during an average hockey game, but that the number of injuries sustained at a ballgame is significantly less.
"As far as balls going into the stands, there are a few cases of death or every serious injuries, even eye injuries," said Milzman. "But for the most part, people have a few advantages. They are further away, they have more time to react and a baseball is a less severe object than a hockey puck just based on shape and composition. For all these reasons baseball injuries are less in number and less in severity."
That stated, the Baseball Hall of Fame said its records indicated at least five deaths of spectators from batted or thrown balls. Cecil's death is thought to be the first of a fan struck by a puck at an NHL game.
Milzman's study showed that 80 per cent of major puck injuries at arenas occur from behind the net area to the back corner regions of the building. He therefore advocates netting protection in those high-risk areas.
"Can you eliminate all danger?" asks King. "I'm not sure about that. You can try to minimize it as best you can. But outside of erecting protection all the way around the rink, it's tough to categorically say someone can't get hurt when a puck leaves the ice surface."
"I don't know if a solution can be found," says Minnesota Wild general manager Doug Risebrough, "but given the advances in technology today, it's our duty to explore every avenue possible. The league has announced it will do that, and it's very serious about the situation.
"What happened to the little girl in Columbus has caused everyone in the sport -- not just in the NHL -- to rethink safety in arenas."
The game owes that much to all those millions of fans who will be visiting rinks in the years to come.
And one in particular who won't.
George Johnson of the Calgary Herald is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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