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Ice theraphy: the Thrashers are learning a lesson from past teams that have had to cope with tragedies—sometimes the best thing to do is to just play

Hockey Digest, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Chuck O'Donnell

PETER ZEZEL, PELLE LINDbergh, and several other Philadelphia Flyers players were out on the town, enjoying themselves. It was Saturday night. They laughed; they clowned around, they playfully argued over who would pickup the tab.

The Flyers had just whipped the Boston Bruins 7-2 and were looking at four days off between games. As Zezel puts it, "Mike Keenan gave us Sunday off, so that was a green light to go out and have some fun, unwind." As the night became early morning, they all bid a "See you at practice Monday," and went home for a good night's sleep. Soon, however, each Flyer was awakened by a phone call that brought the terrible news: Pelle Lindbergh had been in a horrific accident, his Porsche had failed to negotiate a turn and smashed into a wall.

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The players--maybe friends is a more accurate description--rushed to lend whatever support they could. Amid all the chaos there was some miscommunicating all the Flyers ended up at the wrong hospital. All of them but Zezel.

Being the only teammate there, Zezel was asked to identify Lindbergh's body. "The doctor just asked, 'Is this Pelle lindbergh?'" Zezel recalls. "He didn't have a scratch on him. It was all internal injuries. I just said, 'Yeah.' That was all."

Zezel and the rest of that Flyers team understand what the members of the Atlanta Thrashers are going through this year.

Dan Snyder had a child-like love for hockey. As a kid, he would pretend he was being interviewed in between periods of "Hockey Night in Canada." But more Jocelyn Lemieux than Not blessed with great speed, nor size, nor skill.

Undrafted out of the little town of Elmira, Ontario, Snyder usually had to quite literally fight for every break he got. The player Thrashers coach Bob Hartley once observed had legs "as skinny as broomsticks" broke through for 10 goals last season. The Thrashers told him, "Kid, it's all right to get a place in Atlanta. "You're not going down to the minors anymore."

"Snydes" had worked his way into his teammates' hearts as he fought his way into the Thrashers' lineup. Those hearts were heavy when Snyder died on October 5, 2003, six-days after suffering massive brain injuries in a one-car accident with teammate Dany Heatley in Heatley's Ferrari.

"I can't stop thinking about it. It's always on my mind," Thrashers captain Shawn McEachern said at the time of the accident.

"We can't forget Dan Snyder, how hard he always played," Thrashers center Patrik Stefan said after Snyder's death.

At the services at Elmira Menonite Church, Thrashers coach Bob Hartley broke down in tears: "He was a great kid. A great kid."

The Thrashers will feel this loss for a long time, says Atlanta's team psychologist, Dr. James Millhouse. He says that although hockey players are famous for their ability and willingness to play through the worst kinds of injuries, there are human beings underneath those uniforms. Like anyone else, they will eventually work through the classic Kubler-Ross stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

"The loss is dealt with differently with each individual," Millhouse says. "They each will have a different level of resources to cope with the stress of a loss like this. They're each dealing with it as best as one can."

Millhouse, who knew Snyder as "a great kid ... that every parent wished they had," says that the stress will be hard on the Thrashers. Besides the sadness they feel, Snyder's death will likely have more far-reaching affects on the team. For one thing, Millhouse says it will "add to their burden of daily physical, mental, and emotional stress."

One study Millhouse is working on at Georgia Tech is looking at stress levels of Division I athletes and has so far revealed that a surprising amount of them are suffering from so much stress, they are "in crisis." This kind of stress can and most likely will physiologically affect an athlete. Among other things, it can affect their level of concentration and make them more susceptible to injuries. So what is a team to do when it suffers lack such a loss?

Some of the things the Thrashers have done can lower the stress. "Symbolic things such as funerals and eulogies are ways for them to cope with the loss," Millhouse says

After a moving tribute to Snyder, the Thrashers dedicated their first game to their late teammate. Under their equipment, they have worn T-shirts with Heatley's number on the right sleeve and on the left, the date of Snyder's death and a reproduction of a tattoo of Snyder's, a Chinese character symbolizing strength. On the back is a picture of a watch, pieces of which Snyder's mother gave to Hartley and several players, and Snyder's No. 37.

"These are healing rituals and teams need healing rituals," Millhouse says. "The other side of that is that they have a job to do and by focusing on hockey, this is an opportunity to escape for awhile. There's no reason to feel guilty. Some of the players might feel guilty about taking a break from the mourning that they're not thinking about Dan. But it's a natural thing to do, to work through, it."

Ice theraphy: the Thrashers are learning a lesson from past teams that have had to cope with tragedies—sometimes the best thing to do is to just play

Hockey Digest, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Chuck O'Donnell

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