S. Korean Hockey Player Dies; From the other side of the world comes some news that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who has ever laced up a pair of hockey skates:
A South Korean hockey player died after he was hit in the chest by a puck during a league game.
Seung Ho Chi died Tuesday at Chuncheon, South Korea, the International Ice Hockey Federation said Wednesday.
The governing body said the 21-year-old player tried to block a shot, and he was dead by the time he arrived at the hospital. The Korean Ice Hockey Association said the exact cause of death was not yet known, the IIHF said.
"The puck hit the chest, close to the heart area," the IIHF said.
After taking a 14-year hiatus from my favorite sport, I climbed back on the ice just a few weeks after my 26th birthday, and played more or less year-round until shortly before I turned 33. I count myself lucky that the worst injury I ever saw was a broken clavicle, though I did come close to some harrowing injuries -- never closer than one night when my teammates and I came out for what had been billed as a friendly scrimmage.
It was early Summer, and one area rink had only signed up enough players for their Summer hockey school to form one team. Hence, the word went out that the rink was looking for teams to scrimmage against the newbies. For us, it was free ice time, so my team happily accepted two Saturday afternoon slots just a week apart from each other.
The first game was something of a laugher. My team was coming off a season where we had moved up a skill level -- one we spent most of getting thrashed pretty regularly. After 20 games of that, we weren't exactly looking to let up on a team of beginners, and I think we hung a 12-1 victory on them.
But after each goal, it was pretty clear our opposition's young coach wasn't taking it well. By the 12th goal, he was positively apoplectic, and made sure he gave us a piece of his mind as we skated off the ice and headed for the dressing room after the game.
When we came back the following Saturday for the return matchup, it wasn't hard to notice during warmups that one of the other skaters hardly looked like a beginner. It wasn't too much later that we figured out that the coach, who we discovered was a recent graduate of a Division II NCAA hockey program in New England, had decided to take to the ice himself to teach us all a lesson.
While they didn't hang a 12-1 result on us, the effect was still pretty dramatic. The "kid" simply controlled the puck about 75 percent of the time he was on the ice, which was a lot since he decided to double-shift all game long. We got pretty tired of chasing him about 5 minutes into the second period, and spent much of the rest of the game admiring the way he faked everybody on the ice out of their boots.
There were about 2 minutes left in the game when I experienced my brush with death. I was playing left defense, and had just managed to clear one of the newbies out from in front of the crease when my defensive partner managed a very weak clear up the slot. At this point, we were both straddling the faceoff circles in our zone, leaving more than enough room for our goalie to see straight up the ice.
As for the "kid" he had circled down low on the left wing side of the ice, and after a stop that threw up as much snow as a plow, was circling back to the left point along the blue line. Noticing the weak clear, he turned on the jets, and caught up with the puck about six inches before it crossed the blue line to safety.
A right handed shot, he made a quick pivot, and unleashed what was simply the most frightening slap shot I'd ever seen in my life.
Thinking he might be able to deflect the shot, my defensive partner dropped his left hand off the butt end of his stick to block the puck.
Big mistake.
At the speed it was travelling, he only had enough time to get his pinky finger in the way.
He screamed as the puck bent his finger backward, it's trajectory hardly changed.
Luckily for me, I was a few feet in back of him to his left. If I held my ground, the puck would have struck me somewhere between my stomach and my solar plexus. What I did next was simply make myself a smaller target. Pivoting on my left skate, I drew my right skate behind me. Whereas before, my shoulders were perpendicular to the flight of the puck, they were now paralell.
It turned out to be the luckiest reflex move of my young life. For some reason, that day I chose to go without a t-shirt under my pads, and had worn a smaller pair of shoulder pads where the breast plate ended an inch or two above my rib cage.
As the puck passed, I could feel it creasing my light mesh jersey, with the sharp breeze it created tickling the skin on my stomach.
With that, our goalie simply moved out of the way and let the shot in. It hit the back of the net, and bounced back out, finally coming to rest about 10 feet from the top off the crease.
Message recieved.
A South Korean hockey player died after he was hit in the chest by a puck during a league game.
Seung Ho Chi died Tuesday at Chuncheon, South Korea, the International Ice Hockey Federation said Wednesday.
The governing body said the 21-year-old player tried to block a shot, and he was dead by the time he arrived at the hospital. The Korean Ice Hockey Association said the exact cause of death was not yet known, the IIHF said.
"The puck hit the chest, close to the heart area," the IIHF said.
After taking a 14-year hiatus from my favorite sport, I climbed back on the ice just a few weeks after my 26th birthday, and played more or less year-round until shortly before I turned 33. I count myself lucky that the worst injury I ever saw was a broken clavicle, though I did come close to some harrowing injuries -- never closer than one night when my teammates and I came out for what had been billed as a friendly scrimmage.
It was early Summer, and one area rink had only signed up enough players for their Summer hockey school to form one team. Hence, the word went out that the rink was looking for teams to scrimmage against the newbies. For us, it was free ice time, so my team happily accepted two Saturday afternoon slots just a week apart from each other.
The first game was something of a laugher. My team was coming off a season where we had moved up a skill level -- one we spent most of getting thrashed pretty regularly. After 20 games of that, we weren't exactly looking to let up on a team of beginners, and I think we hung a 12-1 victory on them.
But after each goal, it was pretty clear our opposition's young coach wasn't taking it well. By the 12th goal, he was positively apoplectic, and made sure he gave us a piece of his mind as we skated off the ice and headed for the dressing room after the game.
When we came back the following Saturday for the return matchup, it wasn't hard to notice during warmups that one of the other skaters hardly looked like a beginner. It wasn't too much later that we figured out that the coach, who we discovered was a recent graduate of a Division II NCAA hockey program in New England, had decided to take to the ice himself to teach us all a lesson.
While they didn't hang a 12-1 result on us, the effect was still pretty dramatic. The "kid" simply controlled the puck about 75 percent of the time he was on the ice, which was a lot since he decided to double-shift all game long. We got pretty tired of chasing him about 5 minutes into the second period, and spent much of the rest of the game admiring the way he faked everybody on the ice out of their boots.
There were about 2 minutes left in the game when I experienced my brush with death. I was playing left defense, and had just managed to clear one of the newbies out from in front of the crease when my defensive partner managed a very weak clear up the slot. At this point, we were both straddling the faceoff circles in our zone, leaving more than enough room for our goalie to see straight up the ice.
As for the "kid" he had circled down low on the left wing side of the ice, and after a stop that threw up as much snow as a plow, was circling back to the left point along the blue line. Noticing the weak clear, he turned on the jets, and caught up with the puck about six inches before it crossed the blue line to safety.
A right handed shot, he made a quick pivot, and unleashed what was simply the most frightening slap shot I'd ever seen in my life.
Thinking he might be able to deflect the shot, my defensive partner dropped his left hand off the butt end of his stick to block the puck.
Big mistake.
At the speed it was travelling, he only had enough time to get his pinky finger in the way.
He screamed as the puck bent his finger backward, it's trajectory hardly changed.
Luckily for me, I was a few feet in back of him to his left. If I held my ground, the puck would have struck me somewhere between my stomach and my solar plexus. What I did next was simply make myself a smaller target. Pivoting on my left skate, I drew my right skate behind me. Whereas before, my shoulders were perpendicular to the flight of the puck, they were now paralell.
It turned out to be the luckiest reflex move of my young life. For some reason, that day I chose to go without a t-shirt under my pads, and had worn a smaller pair of shoulder pads where the breast plate ended an inch or two above my rib cage.
As the puck passed, I could feel it creasing my light mesh jersey, with the sharp breeze it created tickling the skin on my stomach.
With that, our goalie simply moved out of the way and let the shot in. It hit the back of the net, and bounced back out, finally coming to rest about 10 feet from the top off the crease.
Message recieved.
posted by Anonymous at
11/21/2002 10:59:00 AM
