THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290625
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 251 lines
Hockey is a stitch.
And another. And another.
Hockey is a break, bruise, bump and bad back.
It's a fractured skull, fractured wrist, fractured foot.
Hockey is a stick in the eye, a puck in the mouth, a sock in the jaw.
It's indoor demolition derby.
Hockey is also the greatest thing that ever happened to Kelly Sorenson, Dennis McEwen and Brendan Curley.
Really.
They all say so. Playing for the Hampton Roads Admirals is an experience they'll remember the rest of their lives, for reasons good and bad.
``A lot of what I am as a person comes from hockey,'' says Curley. ``I got into college because of hockey. I've been to Alaska twice and lived in Europe because of hockey. I got my jobs (at WAVY-TV and WKOC radio) because of hockey. I'm not saying I couldn't have done it other ways, but hockey opened doors for me.''
Especially the one to the training room.
In three seasons as a boards-crashing dynamo for the Admirals, Sorenson needed 82 stitches to close a variety of cuts inflicted for a variety of reasons. The linescore: 10 (above left eye), 13 (nose), 15 (chin), four (random areas of the face), 10 (back of leg), 15 (wrist), 10 (elbow) and five (under right eye).
But when it comes to the wonderful world of sutures, Sorenson is a rowboat to Curley's battleship. Sorenson's former linemate took more than 100 stitches while with the Admirals - and says he has between 250 and 300 just on his face.
McEwen smiles recalling that finesse-oriented teammates once chided him about not having to lead with his face every time he made contact with an opponent. Actually, it's not McEwen's real smile, but a dentist's version of what his smile would be like if he still had his front teeth.
``I'm a big hit at parties because I can take my teeth out,'' McEwen says. ``Every morning I've got to put my teeth in and brush them. For three years I've had a partial implant. I'm just waiting (a while) before I permanently replace. When that happens, I'll have a normal smile, a normal look again.''
Stitches are small stuff, cheese-and-crackers in a hockey player's banquet of pain.
Sorenson will one day need surgery to remove calcium deposits from the shoulder he once flung so cavalierly into the opposition.
An assistant golf pro at Honey Bee, he has no range of motion in his right wrist, the result of a hockey injury suffered as high school senior. He already has two degenerative back discs, the reason he retired in December at age 26.
``A lot of stuff is hidden,'' Admirals trainer Rick Burrill says. ``You go for a physical one year and you tell the doc you have a little pain somewhere. They X-ray it and discover a little arthritic condition has developed, attributed to the banging.''
That's how Sorenson found out he was through. Working out with the Admirals while waiting for a roster spot to open, he told a doctor he'd felt a twinge in his back after practice one day.
``He'd fly up and down the ice,'' Burrill says, ``throw his body into the boards, into a pile to get the puck, scramble in front of the net, fight with some guy a head-and-a-half taller - and win most of the time. I think that punishment, self-inflicted, took its toll.
``Hitting the boards sounds good in the stands. The fans love it and they rationalize it by saying it isn't as bad as it looks. They're right. It's not as bad as it looks each time. But they all add up. After a while, you end up with some kind of degenerative, arthritic condition that keeps you from playing competitive hockey.''
In addition to the back problems, Sorenson once broke his leg when slammed into the boards. He also broke an ankle, a wrist and a finger, and fractured two toes when hit by the puck.
``The stitches add up in a hurry, but I never dwelled on it then and I don't dwell on it now,'' Sorenson says. ``Hockey isn't a safe sport. You know that going in. The doctors did a good job sewing me up.
``The amazing thing to me is that injuries never hindered me during my career. My knees are totally fine. I've seen some guys who can pop their knee in and out of place, just wiggle it all around.''
Curley, who has had back problems since he was 11, mostly due to hockey, can't hold the TV camera for as long as other cameramen at WAVY. Each morning's routine is the same - a long, hot shower to loosen the back, then to the gym for 90 minutes, during which he does an average of 150 situps to strengthen the stomach muscles that support his back.
Curley, whose career ended last season, has such severe tendinitis in both knees that he can't jog on concrete. It's sand or grass only. Thanks to hockey, he can't ride a bike for more than a short period of time.
He broke his foot once when hit by an opponent's slapshot. He's had a broken shoulder. Also a separated shoulder. He's broken almost every toe on both feet.
``But the big thing is the knees,'' he admits. ``They're now how I imagined they'd be when I got old.''
Curley is 25.
``Some days they're real stiff and it takes me awhile to get started,'' Curley says. ``I don't want to cry or anything, but I feel it. Sometimes after a hard workout, I have a tough time getting out of bed. There's more of that in my future.
``But the truth is that I feel very fortunate to get out of the game with as few things as happened. I've only got three fake teeth.''
McEwen, who retired after last season at age 28, carries Burrill's designation as ``the most resilient guy I've ever had on a team.'' In juniors, he once played 20 consecutive games after stretching ligaments in his right knee.
``He got into so many situations where guys knocked him into the net or he was crunched up like a pretzel,'' Burrill says. ``You'd cringe on the bench, but he'd pop back up.
``One game, he took his uniform off and he had a hip contusion the size of a football. He didn't even remember how it happened. Between periods, we padded it and he kept playing. Within 48 hours, that thing was gone, not even a bruise. The guy was amazing.''
McEwen says he hit the ice so many times on his elbows, he'd frequently come home sporting egg-sized cysts.
``If I sat with a T-shirt, you'd see little golf balls under my elbows,'' he says. ``People would ask what was going on and I'd say, `Oh, that's just from falling on the ice.'
``Those are the little things about hockey, that and constantly getting hit in the face.''
Nonetheless, McEwen left hockey with the reminders of a serious rotator-cuff injury, two arthroscopic knee surgeries and ``the countless times I got hurt with who-knows-what, but kept playing.''
``People would ask me to pose for a picture with their kid, and I'd squat down next to them so it would turn out nice,'' he says. ``Afterwards, I'd be like, `Good God, I shouldn't have done that.' It would be tough for me to get up because of my knees. I'm still young so I don't notice it as much, but I can see where I'm going.
``I was reckless, very reckless. But that's the way I was brought up. If it was worth doing, it was worth paying the price. If that meant waiting for a pass, knowing I was going to get crunched, to make sure the play was done right, I was prepared to get beat up.''
Burrill, in his third season with the Admirals, admits he has no hard evidence to support his claim, but says players at low-minor-league levels like the ECHL sacrifice their bodies more than players at or closer to the NHL.
``My suspicion is that they're hungrier to get out of here than the guy who's made it to the NHL,'' he says. ``But you go into the locker room and sometimes you see guys just sitting there after a game, staring ahead. You know they're hurting. I think ultimately they tell themselves, `I don't want to do this anymore. It just hurts too much.'
``And it's not the big things. It's the nagging things they get tired of. Fans look at a guy who's limping a little and they say it's just a banged foot. No, it's not. It's day after day after day, for six months. Every year of your career. It gets old.''
So why do they do it?
Can't be the money. ECHL players earn about $300 a week.
Can't be the benefits. ECHL players aren't part of a union. According to Burrill, ``usually, unless a specific incident can be attached to a specific injury, the players are responsible for what happens to them after their careers. A lot of guys have to take care of themselves. They have to hope they've got some other talent to fall back on.''
Or a team owner like Blake Cullen. In separate conversations, McEwen, Curley and Sorenson volunteer that the Admirals' president frequently pays medical expenses for which he technically is not responsible.
``He's offered to fix my teeth,'' said McEwen, now an account executive for Coastal Forms and Data Products in Newport News. ``Frankly, it's because of Blake that I don't feel so bad about some of the things I did.''
``When these players come here, one of the things we tell them is that we'll get them the best medical treatment possible,'' Cullen said. ``I feel an obligation to them, whether they're here or were injured here.''
Nonetheless, Sorenson, who in May will become the head pro at a golf course in Atlantic City, admits he worries about ``back surgery that'll have me giving lessons from a wheelchair in 15 years.''
``Five, 10 years from now, I may say it wasn't worth it,'' Sorenson says. ``But I come from a small town in Canada, grew up without a lot of direction in my life. Both parents are blue-collar workers who don't make a lot of money.
``I'm so glad I had the opportunity to accept a scholarship because of hockey, to get my education paid for in the United States, and to have the chances I'm getting.''
Sometimes they play because of career aspirations and self-inflicted pressure. McEwen's partially-torn rotator cuff caused his hand to fly off the stick whenever he tried to shoot, but he kept skating.
``It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me, because if you completely tear your rotator cuff in hockey, you're through,'' he said. ``I tried everything I could to keep going. It was my second year here. I was supposed to be progressing. I thought it was my make-or-break year. Later, I would learn that players say that every year.''
Adds Curley: ``You never know who's in the stands. The last thing you want is a reputation as a guy who can't play hurt, who isn't tough.''
Sometimes they play because of a work ethic imbedded in them from the first time they laced on skates. Despite a bad back, Curley's father played hockey for Boston College. He built a rink from railroad ties in the backyard of his suburban Buffalo home.
Wearing skis, Brendan would pound down the snow that fell inside the rink until it was hard. Then Curley's father would make ice by pouring hot water through his ``Zamboni'' - a gutter into which he'd punched hundreds of holes. You don't just set aside a game you went through that much trouble to play as a child.
Sometimes they play because peer pressure - pressure by example - can be overwhelming.
Near the end of his first season in Hampton Roads, Curley was aligned with Sorenson and Jason MacIntyre, who recently retired from hockey after undergoing major shoulder surgery. The ``Nine Line,'' as it was called, was on the ice for every opening faceoff. If they won it, their job was to throw the puck into a corner and start banging.
``You'd dump it, then bash,'' Curley said. ``Those two would go into the corner and, hell or high water, they were coming out with the puck.''
It took a toll. MacIntyre, despite an almost legendary high tolerance for pain, surrendered in January.
``Watching him play hurt was amazing,'' Curley said. ``You couldn't sit out. It has a lot to do with teammates. You go to war with them, and you don't want to leave them just because you have an injury. That's the big motivator to play with injuries. Everyone's done it, even though they shouldn't.''
McEwen adds that hockey is a test of will, with no greater exam than to play through an injury.
``Some of my best games came when I was so sick I could hardly stand,'' he said. ``That's when your mind really focuses. People who know sports know hockey players are nuts. I don't know how I did it. No one knows how hockey players do it.''
Or if they would do it again.
``For some, it's a relief when they can't play any more,'' Burrill said. ``It's like, `No more two-a-day practices. No more getting to the training room 90 minutes before practice for treatment. And no more icebags, except on my hangover.' '' ILLUSTRATION: L. TODD SPENCER
Injuries forced former Admirals Kelly Sorenson, left, and Dennis
McEwen to retire.
FILE
The Virginian-Pilot
Dennis McEwen, laid out after a crushing check, is ``the most
resilient guy I've ever had on a team,'' Admirals trainer Rick
Burrill said.
Kelly Sorenson's 82 stitches: 10 (above left eye), 13 (nose), 15
(chin), four (random areas of the face), 10 (back of leg), 15
(wrist), 10 (elbow) and five (under right eye).
ADMIRALS vs. RICHMOND
GAME 2, ECHL PLAYOFFS FIRST ROUND
Site: Richmond Coliseum, 7:35 p.m.
Radio: WTAR 790-AM (pregame show, 7:08 p.m.)
Tickets: About 5,000 had been sold. A crowd of about 8,000 is
expected at the 11,088-seat Coliseum. Tickets, priced at $7, $9, $10
and $13, can be purchased by calling 804-643-7825.
Richmond leads the series 1-0
REST OF THE SERIES
Game 3 Richmond at Hampton Roads, Saturday, March 30, 7:30 p.m
Game 4 Richmond at Hampton Roads, Tuesday, April 2, 7:30 p.m.*
Game 5 Hampton Roads at Richmond, Thursday, April 4, 7:05 p.m.*
* if necessary
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB