Comments on: The Alexei Cherepanov Tragedy Shows That Vladislav Tretiak Is Dreaming

By: JH

JH — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:38:14 +0000

Great piece!
The Cherepanov and Bourdon accidents are tragic, for their families and the NHL. The question is whether these accidents can be prevented in the future. Maybe better testing on the NHL’s part for the Cherepanov situation and educating the players (youngsters) on dangerous activities such as motorcycle etc… Just seems like more should/can be done to prevent tragedies like these from occuring in the future…. and it is ridiculous how the Rangers are seeking another pick to replace Cherepanov. My thoughts. http://jib-sports-culture.blogspot.com/2008/11/tragedy-for-promising-rookies.html

By: Dennis Kane

Dennis Kane — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:21:22 +0000

And the point I made was that the NHL would have had lots of medical staff at games, but in the Continental League, at least in this game, they were gone. Regardless of the kid’s condition, there should have been help there. If this league wants to be as good as the NHL, they have much work to do and this incident makes this clear.
That’s my point. Seemed pretty clear at the time.

By: habsfan79

habsfan79 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:07:15 +0000

The point I was making though, is that criticism of the KHL for this particular event is unwarranted.
Cherapanov would have been dead no matter what they had there.

By: sandy

sandy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:26:18 +0000

yes Dennis, regardless of his condition there should be proper equipment and medical staff available for the players,its great to have a defibrillator available, and great if you never have to use it

By: Dennis Kane

Dennis Kane — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:33:15 +0000

It’s only me who writes the posts on this site. (Every day).
And it’s not out of line to expect medical staff to be there, regardless of his condition.

By: Dennis Kane

Dennis Kane — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:25:08 +0000

Thanks.

By: habsfan79

habsfan79 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:06:25 +0000

Dennis,
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now along with the boys at 4HF. Really enjoy everything you guys put up, but I’m getting a little sick of this Cherapanov stuff.

He had HOCM. HOCM is bad. HOCM is virtually impossible to detect unless you have an echocardiogram. Once patients with HOCM have a cardiac arrest, they die. It’s that simple. They are virtually impossible to resuscitate. Whether there was an ambulance, a defibrillator, or a doctor in the building wouldn’t have mattered a single bit.

This criticism of the KHL is ridiciculous. This same situation could easily happen in the NHL on any given day to any player. Unless teams are prepared to perform echocardiograms on every one of their players there really isn’t an effective way of stopping this from happening.

Columns like the one you wrote, and the criticism that TSN and the media is directing at the KHL is simply put, out of line and ignorant of the medical condition that Cherapanov had.