On Wednesday, March 22, 1989 I experienced one of the coolest moments of my childhood. As a 7-year old I was lined up on rubber mats in the bowels of Buffalo Memorial Auditorium dressed in full hockey gear with a group of other teammates and players in our Northern Chautauqua County Youth Hockey Association league. With several parents in tow we were led from our locker room down wide hallways and up to entrance to the ice.

If you play hockey long enough, you’re bound to skate in a NHL arena once or twice and the first time you get that opportunity you never forget it. Especially when there are over 16,000 fans in the seats.

The Aud (since torn down) is considered small by current hockey standards but I can still feel that sensation of stepping through the door way and the vastness of the building mixed with the feeling of thousands of eyes on you sending a tingling lightning bolt down my back.

Then, I couldn’t skate.

It wasn’t due to stage fright or nerves. These youth hockey scrimmages were a regular occurrence throughout this era and after the 1st period between the Buffalo Sabres and St. Louis Blues my pint-sized legs could barely move through the chewed up and slushy ice caused by 20 minutes of professionals skating. After the initial rush of stepping onto the ice all I remember was that our little game went by so quickly, no one could move the puck that well through the snowy ice, and no one scored.

7-year old me picking up the puck and breaking down the ice. 

This isn’t much of a story, except it’s the preceding 2 hours leading up to our scrimmage that were memorable in Western New York for much different reasons.

The 1988-89 Sabres were an entirely average outfit. They’d finish 5th in the Prince of Wales Conference and get bounced out of the playoffs in the first round by Boston. Their two young stars, center Pierre Turgeon and defenseman Phil Housley, led a bunch of journeyman on the roster and would both be traded down the line in coming seasons. It was a franchise spinning its wheels in the years after legend Gilbert Perreault retired and it would be a few more seasons until Pat Lafontaine and Alexander Mogilny combined for 275 points in a memorable 1992-93 offensive explosion.

Two weeks before our skate that night at the Aud, the Sabres brought in 27-year old goaltender Clint Malarchuk in a multi-player deal with the Washington Capitals. A solid NHL starter for the previous 4 seasons, Malarchuk endeared himself to young kids like me due to his absolutely awesome buffalo skull goalie helmet.

A great era for goalie helmet designs.

When we arrived at the Aud that evening we were allowed to enter the arena before fans and then herded by a team official who gave us a truncated tour of the rink and where the Sabres exited their locker room and entered the ice, a similar route we would end up taking not long thereafter from down the opposite hallway.

I still have a VHS tape packed away somewhere in the basement from the large locker room we all packed into with our fathers to get ready. Although we would miss the 1st period getting ready the excitement we all felt as giddy little kids was such a quintessential youth hockey moment. As things drew near, a couple parents would come in and out of the locker room with updates on the time remaining in the period.

Eventually, we all strapped on our helmets, picked up our sticks, and did what every little kid is taught at this age–line up in single file by the door. I remember standing there and thinking, “Wow, this can’t be real, I can’t believe I’m about to skate on the same ice as the Sabres! There are so many people out there!”

Then, there was a bunch of commotion near the door and I recall my dad saying, “They took Malarchuk out on a stretcher.”

Those are the only words I remember from that night. I didn’t know what a stretcher was or what it meant. After a minute, it became clear we were going to wait a while to take the ice. Many of us sat back down in the locker room on the benches.

Late in the 1st period, a Sabres defenseman rode a Blues forward into the net taking out Malarchuk in one swift blink of an eye. It’s something that happened a million times before in the history of hockey, especially since the league stopped bolting the nets to the ice and players lost some of their fear being so reckless.

On this night, disaster struck. The Blues player was sent quickly off his feet and his skate caught Malarchuk across the neck. The scene that followed is tough to watch, so beware before watching the video below.

***WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC***

The skate opened up a six inch gash on Malarchuk’s neck severing his carotid artery and partially cutting his jugular vein. Sabres trainer Jim Pizzutelli raced out on the ice and helped to save Malarchuk’s life by pinching the vein and applying pressure to the goalie’s chest once he was taken to the locker room until doctor’s later stabilized the wound.

Inside the arena, players vomited, fans fainted, and there were two registered heart attacks. Amazingly, Malarchuk would be okay given the gruesome nature of the injury and was actually back with the team only 10 days later.

After the long wait, we finally lined up at the door again as the two NHL teams played out the last seconds of the period. After one of the scariest injuries in hockey history, there we were as little kids stepping on the same ice workers had just scraped over a liter of blood from minutes earlier.

Malarchuk would spend another 3 seasons in Buffalo and then finish his career in the IHL before retiring after the 1996-97 season. He bounced around the coaching world until 6 years ago but has dealt with several personal issues through the years. He struggled with OCD and alcoholism and miraculously survived a suicide attempt in 2008 on his ranch in western Nevada when a bullet lodged in his skull.

In 2014, Malarchuk published an autobiography titled A Matter of Inches–How I Survived in the Crease and Beyond that chronicles his life and documents many of his struggles. Malarchuk is very public about how he was unable to deal with the trauma from his neck injury and how it led to PTSD as no one at the time suggested counseling for such a traumatic event. He came back in 10 days!

Today, Malarchuk has transformed himself into a motivational speaker and by all accounts is doing well. I often think about how this story and my placement in it would’ve changed had he passed away from his neck injury that night. Thankfully, he’s had the strength to carry on and finally take such a traumatic moment in his life and make it a positive platform for others in the world.