Until the last veteran covers his face with a shield, the most horrifying sight in hockey remains the player going up the runway with a towel covering his face. Pain thresholds of hockey players being what they are, you know its not likely the cheekbone, nose or teeth, but the eye. So you begin to pray for that millimeters difference that will determine whether or not a player has a career remaining.
The Flyers apparently have been given reason to believe Chris Pronger still does, but experience suggests initial diagnoses of eye traumas are as blurry as was the defensemans initial vision in the locker room. (See story.)
Paul Holmgren put Phil Esposito on his rear with a celebrated hit in his first NHL game while playing with an eye that had made contact with a skate blade at the bottom of an AHL brawl a few days earlier. It wasnt until swelling set in the next night in a Boston hotel room that Holmgren became aware there was a serious problem.
Bob Clarke and Barry Ashbee took the rookie to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he needed an emergency operation to plug a fluid leak to save his vision. A reaction to the anesthetic sent Holmgren into convulsions on the table and he almost died that night. Instead, he scored 144 goals over nine seasons while having trouble seeing pucks directly at his feet.
Bernie Parent, the right eye slit of his mask inadvertently invaded by the stick of Don Maloney as the Ranger was grabbed by Jimmy Watson, skated right up the runway, too, at the Spectrum in February 1979 and the initial reports were much like those about Pronger: Bed rest while the blood drains from the chamber.
If all goes well, Bernie could be back in three weeks, said Flyers physician Dr. Edward Viner. Earlier that season, Rick MacLeish had been clipped in the eye and been back in two. But two conjunctival tears were found in Parents eye at Wills Eye Hospital and he never played again.
So at the very least, two weeks sounds awfully optimistic for Prongers return.
NHL
Jay Greenberg covered theFlyers for 14 years for the Daily News and Evening Bulletin. Hishistory of the Flyers, Full Spectrum, was published in 1996. He can bereached at jayg616@aol.com.