Years later, Bergeron finally playing Bergeron-like

Tim Kolupanowich
February 8, 2012

Patrice Bergeron and the Boston Bruins got off to a very good start in the beginning of the 2007-08 season. Despite Bergeron recording back-to-back 70-point seasons coming out of the lockout, the Bruins struggled as GM Peter Chiarelli traded centerpiece Joe Thornton to San Jose and started to rebuild the franchise around free agent stalwarts Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard.

The Bruins only recorded 74 and 76 points in 2005-06 and ’06-07 respectively, finishing 13th in the Eastern Conference both seasons. But in their first year under the tutelage of head coach Claude Julien, they began turning things around. The first nine games of the season saw the Bs go 6-3 and Bergeron was enjoying another fine campaign, tied with Phil Kessel for second in team scoring with three goals and seven points.

Then disaster struck in the 10th game when the Bruins hosted the Philadelphia Flyers on October 27.

At 16:07 of the first period, Bergeron was chasing down a puck that was dumped into Philadelphia’s zone. A split-second after playing the puck behind the net, Flyers defenseman Randy Jones, who was following the play, shoved Bergeron from behind face-first into the dasher.

Bergeron lay motionless for nearly 10 minutes as trainers from both teams attended to him. They had to cut away his jersey while he was still on the ice before taking him off on a stretcher. The end result was a broken nose and a grade-three concussion. Jones was suspended two games for the play. Bergeron’s season ended and his career was in jeopardy at just 22 years old. 

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Fast forward to this year, his fourth season after his injury, and only now, with 46 points in 51 games, is he scoring at the same clip as he did before the injury. He has had a steady but slow climb back to this level as his point totals have risen from 39 to 52 to 57 and, should he maintain his current pace, 74 points, which would be a career high.

As a reference point, before the incident, only Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin had more career points among players 23 and under at the time, which shows what a top-end talent he certainly had the potential to be. His career point totals are nowhere near those two players any more, but he is every bit as important to his team. He has developed his defensive game to a tremendous point and is a leading candidate for the Selke Trophy for best defensive forward this season.

Bergeron’s all-around play was instrumental in the playoffs last year where he truly began to finally show flashes of his old self. His two-way play was evident as he tied for third in points (20) and second in assists (14) while finishing third in faceoff percentage (60.2) and second to Chara in plus-minus (plus-15). He not only recorded two goals, including the game-winner, in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, he finished the game as a plus-4 as he was on the ice for every Bruins goal in the 4-0 win.

Many were in awe of Sidney Crosby’s fast start in his highly anticipated, albeit short, return this season, but Bergeron has shown just how long the road to recovery really is. A concussion as severe as Bergeron’s can be extremely difficult to deal with, especially in the beginning. “For several weeks, he had to sit in a dark room, unable to do simple everyday tasks such as watching TV or getting up and walking into the kitchen,” according to SLAM! Sports. They go on to mention how, in the end, he was one of the “lucky” ones.

As if anyone knocked unconscious in such a violent fashion can possibly be considered lucky.

But that’s life in the NHL, where they rely more on luck just to return from a head injury than common sense to avoid them. A string of preventable concussions have likely ended teammate Marc Savard’s career. They have already done in a number of NHL stars, including 15-year veteran Keith Primeau.

Primeau has spent his time since his retirement raising awareness on how severe and frequent concussions really are. He and several former NHLers and concussion specialists have created the website StopConcussions.com in order to provide information on the subject. One of the main keys on the site notes recovery in an indefinite period that can only be measured in steps, not time.

Recovery to the point of returning to action for any athlete is a six-step program that involves slowly adding more activity every few days as long as symptoms don’t flare up again. If they do, it is important to stop all activity, take a few days to rest and start over from the last stage that showed no symptoms.

There is a lot more to concussions than just headaches, dizziness and fatigue as the physical injury can just be a start to something worse. Depression can also become a factor. Doctors must watch out for this as it can affect someone long after concussion symptoms have ceased. Depression is a serious matter that, according to the website “engulfs your day-to-day life, interfering with your ability to work, study, eat, sleep, and have fun.” And really, having fun is the main reason anyone ever started playing hockey in the first place.

When the process of coming back takes as long as it did for Bergeron, it’s not easy to shake off the cobwebs, even when healthy. Timing is off after being away for so long and that is not something you can’t get back through dry-land training. When Bergeron was interviewed by Sports Illustrated last fall, he indicated that the key to recovery is patience and keeping a positive attitude. It’s not as much about being cleared for contact, but more a gut instinct telling the player that he’s ready to come back.

That can be hard to do. Even while playing for the past four seasons, there have been setbacks. There was a scare in his first season back after a run-in with future teammate Dennis Siedenberg, then of the Carolina Hurricanes, then again in the playoffs last season when he was hit by another Flyer, Claude Giroux. Fortunately, neither incident proved to be nearly as serious as the original injury, though his absence was felt. In the two games he missed against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final, the Bruins allowed 10 goals, two more than they allowed in the entire Stanley Cup Final.

A player needs to take every precaution and make 100 percent sure he is ready, because coming back too early can cause even a minor injury to become a much bigger problem. HowToKeepHealth.com printed a report that echoes the idea it’s best for an athlete to take their time coming back to play:

The data showed that athletes who engaged in the highest level of activity soon after the initial injury tended to demonstrate the worst neurocognitive scores and slowest reaction times. Students fared better if they didn’t return immediately to their sport but instead simply engaged in normal school and home activities.

The study data reflect a general trend showing lower visual memory and reaction scores during the month following the injury among athletes who returned to their sports quickly after a concussion.

Unfortunately, the data collected is still not suitable enough to recommend specific courses of action for each person suffering from a concussion, and therein lays the problem. Just as each person is different, so is each concussion. Some are just luckier than others. And there will be no single answer for the prevention or treatment of concussions until there is significantly more information about the brain, so people will just have to remain patient.

Four years. That’s how patient Bergeron had to be. That’s how long it took for him to go from dimly lit rooms to a Stanley Cup champion. That’s how long it took him to get his life and career back to where it should be. That’s how “lucky” Bergeron really was.

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The Author:

Tim Kolupanowich