A sad day for the hockey world

A view from the cheap seats - The sporting world, hockey in particular, suffered a tragic loss recently and instead of mourning this loss properly, it has many in the business asking some hard questions.

Alexei Cherepanov, a 2007 first-round pick of the New York Rangers, had a bright hockey future ahead of him until he collapsed on the bench of an Omsk game, his club team in the Russian Kontinental Hockey League, last Monday and subsequently died.

As I just stated, there have been many questions raised from this tragedy and all are related to the medical treatment that the 19-year-old received following his collapse. Apparently there were many efforts made on the bench and at the rink to resuscitate Cherepanov, but the ambulance that is normally present at the stadium had departed for, as yet, an undetermined reason.

It apparently took upwards of 20 minutes for it to return to the stadium and there are also several disturbing reports that the arena defibrillators weren't in good working condition. It's ironic that it took a similar near tragedy for another European hockey player several years ago to bring attention to this topic in North America.

Some of you may remember what happened to Jiri Fisher of the Detroit Red Wings in 2005 - I certainly do as I was watching that game live when it happened. It was a home game between the Wings and the Nashville Predators on Nov. 21 of that year when, during the first period, Fisher collapsed behind the bench.

You could see the training staff or someone doing CPR on Fisher and at some point a little later on they apparently hooked him up to the portable defibrillator and shocked his heart back to life. It was scary watching the proceedings on television and I'm sure much more tense for the people directly involved. But the incident seemingly brought immediate nationwide awareness to the importance and necessity of having defibrillating machines at every rink, as well as every public building, in both the United States and Canada.

It's actually not even that long ago when this lesson hit home for a Winnipeg man. Chris Kacsmar, a competitive soccer player, collapsed during a game at the Highlander Sportsplex in Winnipeg last winter. Upon realizing that his heart had stopped his teammates began administering CPR but it wasn't working.

Fortunately the Sportsplex had a portable defibrillator as part of their regular equipment and an arena worker used it to successfully resuscitate Kacsmar's heart and save his life.

It is really difficult to emphasize the importance of having these machines readily available for this type of emergency but to try and put it in prospective; for every minute that passes for someone in cardiac arrest their chance of survival drops by ten per cent.

Brain death starts to occur four to six minutes after a persons heart stops if no CPR or defibrillation is administered during that time period, so you can see the significance of having these machines readily available. Now, it would be a little naive to think that every public building in North America has a defibrillator, but I can tell you in doing research for this story, I have found out that through the efforts of Jiri Fisher, who was unable to resume his hockey career, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation many places that did not have them before 2005 have them now.

I can also put many of my local readers at rest by informing you that the Stephenville Dome does have a defibrillator on site. Unfortunately nothing that happens today, tomorrow or next week will bring Alexei Cherepanov back. But if this sad incident motivates the Russian government or any other government for that matter to make changes then it may help save a lot of grief for many other families.