Goalie tragically dies on the ice during warm-up
This is awful. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family.
HockeyFeed
A tragic scene played out in the Russian amateur SHL earlier this week, with a 62 year old goaltender passing away on the ice during warmup prior to a game in Moscow.
According to a Russian-language report from Sport Express, the goalie collapsed during warmup and passed away before medical professionals could get to him. Sadly, there were no medical professionals or ambulances on site, which could have saved the 62 year old man's life.
“What is the cause of death? We don’t yet have all the information ourselves. I personally wasn’t here at the game. It happened late. Goalkeeper Nikolai Kuznetsov was 62 years old. We are in touch with the hockey player’s relatives. We will help them in everything,” SHL director Sergei Stolyarov told Sport-Express.
A 60 year old man also reportedly passed away earlier this month in another SHL game in Moscow.
“We talked with the teams before the season. They refused to take ambulances because it would make the championship more expensive," Stolyarov told Sport-Express. "We will gather the division council. We are definitely in favor of ambulances being present at matches. In Moscow there are 15 leagues in the area, ambulances are only in one league. Of course, it’s bad, but it’s such a coincidence that two cases happened here. Perhaps the age here should be limited to at least 55 years. They all refuse, they say that they are ready to sign any paper: 'What we will do, this is our hobby.' Accordingly, they are trying to make us guilty."
Yikes...
This guy sounds a lot more concerned with how this news reflects on him, rather than the health and safety of his players and the families that just lost two men in their 60s.
The fact is though that there are leagues and arenas all over the world that don't have proper medical facilities on site. Personally, I've seen an increase in the amount of AED's that I've seen at rural arenas around Canada, but I'm not sure if that's the case in the USA.
As a guy who's not getting any younger himself, I'd love to see more emergency services available in rinks across Canada and the United States.
