THE GREAT WHITE BEAR

I was listening to the Wings game online as I was preparing a post titled WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY PARENTS AMERICA when it happened. Play was stopped and all eyes in the arena turned toward the Red Wings bench, where the team's trainers and doctor were frantically working on a player. Almost immediately, they began performing CPR on the player, who was lying on the floor in the runway. Because of the crowd surrounding him, no one could make out his number. After a few minutes, an ambulance arrived at the Zamboni entrance, and Kris Draper and Robert Lang quickly skated over and retrieved the stretcher. Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shannahan escorted a young women across the ice to the Wing's bench.

I am sure that every old time Detroit sports fan had the same ugly flashback that I did. Oct. 24, 1971. Tiger Stadium. The Bear's Dick Butkus frantically waving to the sidelines for medical help as the rest of the two teams huddled. Second year wide receiver Chuck Hughes lying motionless on the turf. Lions players had thought he was faking an injury to stop the clock. However, Butkis had seen him collapse, and new immediately it was serious. Hughes was never revived. The 24 yr old had died of a massive heart attack brought on by amphetamine use. It would be 20 years before the Lions franchise would recover. And to this day I can see the scene as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. At the small college I attended here in South Bend, the majority guys living on campus were either from northern Indiana or metro Detroit. So when the Lions and Bears played the TV room in the dorm was filled with rival fans. I was sitting on a leather couch on the north wall facing the TV. Seated next to me was a fellow Pontiac native, Doyle Perry. I don't think I have ever been in a room full of men that was so quiet as that group. You could literally hear big Doyle's heart beat.

So it was that day in 1971 that was on my mind when the announcement came over the PA that 25 yr old Jiri Fisher was breathing on his own, but still unconscious. A few minutes later, it was announced that the league office had postponed the game, but that Fisher was awake at the hospital and talking to his fiance.

It had been an odd scene in the stands at the Joe. Nobody could see what was going on, and people were standing in the upper concourse frantically calling friends or family to find out what was going on. Then someone would rush down and relay the news to the people in their section. Because the radio and OLN crews were on top of the news, the fans actually knew long before the announcement came that Fisher had been revived and the game was going to be called. Yet most of them stayed, as if to make sure the news was really good.

The official line is that he suffered a seizure, although I don't recall ever seeing anyone's heart stop beating from a seizure. I'm sure we'll know more tomorrow. As for me, I am going to sit down, pop a beer, and breath a very audible sigh of relief.