MANALAPAN, Fla. (AP) — Tom Fitzgerald and wife Kerry watched their son Casey's American Hockey League game on a cellphone at a restaurant bar on Dec. 28 and saw him come out of the corner on an otherwise innocuous play holding his hand to the right side of his neck.
He had been cut by a skate blade just above his neck guard and was bleeding when trainers rushed to him and got him into an ambulance. The only update his parents received, from Hartford's trainer through his girlfriend, was that the bleeding was stopped and Casey was on the way to the hospital.
“He called us from the ambulance on the way to the hospital, saying: ‘I’m OK. I’m going to be OK,’” Tom Fitzgerald recalled. “We kind of broke down there.”
Casey Fitzgerald survived the skate cut to the neck, which came a little over a year since Adam Johnson died from one while playing in a game in England, and his father — the general manager of the New Jersey Devils — gave an impassioned plea on the subject Tuesday at the NHL GMs meeting.
“I don’t wish that on any parent,” Tom Fitzgerald said. “My message was just: ‘Tell the players you don’t want your parents potentially going through something like this, how scary it is. Put as much protection on as you possibly can because you’re going to stop playing at some point, and you’re going to have to live the rest of your life, so live it.'”
Fitzgerald's poignant speech to the group comes amid the sport's rapid evolution on neck guards in light of Johnson's tragic death. Cut-resistant neck, wrist and Achilles tendon protection that is now mandated in the U.S. and Canada at youth levels and up through the minors in the ECHL and AHL is available to players but not required at the NHL level.
“We have to move in the direction that we’re protecting our players the best we can,” said San Jose GM Mike Grier, who is close to the Fitzgerald family from their sons growing up playing together. "We have to encourage our players to protect themselves.”
The Players’ Association would have to agree to any mandate, much like with the decision to grandfather in half-shield face visors just over a decade ago. The union and league have studied the topic for years, and NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh has said those conversations are ongoing.
“The joint NHL/NHLPA Protective Equipment Subcommittee provides education to players and teams regarding cut-resistant equipment that is available to all players,” the Players’ Association said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Tuesday. "The NHLPA’s emphasis is on making sure players have the necessary information to make informed choices about their equipment. Our membership continues to feel strongly that wearing cut-resistant equipment is a matter of individual preference.”
Some prominent skate cuts, such as Erik Karlsson's torn Achilles tendon in 2013, made Kevlar socks more widely used around the NHL. Johnson's death has ramped up production of neck guards to the point that there are more than 30 approved pieces of equipment available for players now.
“In the old days we started this process, ‘Oh, I don’t want to wear that, it’s too tight, it’s too restrictive, it’s too hot,'” NHL vice president of hockey operations Rod Pasma said. “Well, there’s so many options now to the players that whatever their issues are with a comfort or with a breathability or whatever, there’s other options to try.”
Pasma gave his annual safety presentation, updating GMs on the cuts and near-misses this season, followed by video clips of them. The last one in the montage was of Casey Fitzgerald, along with photos of the cut to the neck that required 25 stitches.
“They showed the before and after, and I think that’s what caught a lot of people’s attention of, ‘Well, wow’ and really how lucky he was,” Tom Fitzgerald said. “The more I talked the more I started getting choked up a bit just thinking how lucky we are."
Fitzgerald and Grier acknowledged they sound like hypocrites because they chose not to wear visors while playing. But now they are encouraging those on their teams to consider putting on cut-resistant gear.
There is a process in place to educate players on skate cut protection: a mandated video of near-misses shown during training camp, when players are provided with their options. Pasma acknowledged players are “creatures of habit” who want to make their own decisions as professionals, but efforts will likely ramp up to make cut-resistant materials as much a part of hockey as helmets and shin guards.
“Does it go to a place like the visors went to a number of years? I’d say that’s got the potential,” Pasma said. "The good news is, is the players, almost all the players that are coming into the National Hockey League, playing their first game in the National Hockey League have already worn the gear, so they’re used to it.”
It's nothing new to the Fitzgerald family. Tom made all four of his sons put on Kevlar socks when they got on the ice as kids, telling them, “If you’re not putting them on, you’re not playing.” He cannot enforce that mandate with the Devils just yet but hopes Casey's experience is another step toward full neck protection.
"I get worried," Fitzgerald said. "Why the players don’t think big picture versus just it’s about my career today. And if they ever thought of their parents watching what we watched, maybe they’d think differently.”
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Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press
