scamperdog
11-16-2006, 10:47 PM
Warriors’ Lang forced to deal with tragedy
by Gregg Drinnan
www.kamloopsnews.ca
There isn’t anything in the manual for WHL general managers that prepares a person for what Chad Lang has been through since Oct. 22.
A native of Regina, Lang, today the general manager of the Moose Jaw Warriors, was in the Agridome on March 1, 1987, when Pats forward Brad Hornung was checked from behind and left a quadriplegic.
Lang couldn’t have known then that the day would come when he would have to deal with a similar tragedy.
As the general manager of a WHL team, you are responsible for the young men on your roster and only Lang knows how incredibly hard it was to make a call to Garrett Robinson’s parents and tell them their son had been seriously injured in an auto accident.
That’s what the 28-year-old Lang had to deal with Oct. 22 after he got a 6:50 a.m. call on his cellphone telling him that goaltender Joey Perricone and forwards Carter Smith and Robinson had been in an accident.
While Perricone and Smith suffered minor injuries and have returned to the lineup, Robinson, an 18-year-old from Surrey, suffered head trauma. After 13 days in Regina General Hospital, he was flown to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster on Nov. 4.
“I don’t know if you can ever be prepared or be trained for this,” Lang said prior to watching the Kelowna Rockets and Kamloops Blazers on Tuesday night at the Interior Savings Centre.
The accident happened at 6:41 a.m. Upon receiving the phone call, Lang, who had just returned home from a scouting trip to the U.S., headed to the accident scene. He then went to the hospital in Moose Jaw to check on his players.
By 7:15 a.m., he was on the phone with Robinson’s parents, Carol and Randy.
“It’s the hardest call I’ve ever had to make in my life,” Lang says.
Within 45 minutes, Robinson’s parents had a flight booked and arrangements had been made for his brother, Matt, to travel from Anchorage, where he was playing with the ECHL’s Aces.
“You just go ahead and do things the way you would want your son or daughter to be looked after,” Lang said. “That’s kind of the approach I’ve taken.”
Lang doesn’t hide the fact that “it’s been a tough three weeks” but he is quick to add he has received a lot of support, especially from his wife, Shaulen, and their two boys.
“I’ve also been fortunate the league has been outstanding and our partners have been very supportive,” he says. “We talk about our league and our partners, but the fans . . . the fans of the Western Hockey League have been tremendous.”
The Warriors have set up the Garrett Robinson Recovery Fund. With some teams still holding fund-raisers, Lang says the fund now contains about $80,000.
That includes $5,000 from the coaches and players of the NHL’s Boston Bruins. It turns out that former Blazers and Rockets head coach Marc Habscheid, who now is on the Bruins’ coaching staff, worked a couple of practices with the Warriors last season.
Lang spent most of Monday with Robinson and came away feeling somewhat positive.
“He looked good,” Lang says. “He’s communicating . . . he uses his hands a lot. From where he was in Regina to where he is now, I see big improvement.
“Each and every day, he is slightly improving. We haven’t got any medical update . . . but he is responding well. They’ve had him up, sitting in a wheelchair. They have tried a couple of times to get him to stand up with assistance but he doesn’t have his centre of gravity.
“That’s all part of the rehabilitation . . . to push him a little more each day.”
There was more progress Wednesday when Robinson, whose jaw is wired, spoke for the first time since the accident, asking Lang to pass along best wishes to his teammates prior to last night’s game against the visiting Portland Winter Hawks.
Lang feels it’s important that people understand Robinson’s situation isn’t going to change overnight. In fact, he says it will be a matter of months, not days or weeks.
“It’s going to be a long, long process,” Lang says. “I have talked with the doctors and that’s what they’ve said . . . with the severity of his condition, it’s going to be a long process.”
Lang knows, too, that there are others who need his attention, like the other 23 players on the Warriors’ roster.
“A lot of times,” he says, “those guys are hidden with this situation but they all have issues. It’s a matter of trying to deal with their emotions and spending a lot of time with them and helping them deal with things.”
The Warriors went on something of a tear (3-1-1-0) after the accident, but have since tailed off and have lost five in a row. All of which Lang says has to do with emotion.
“I think our guys really wanted to play well for Garrett,” he says. “Now we’re kind of struggling. I think a lot of emotions went through those players. At times they’re on a high and at times they’re at rock bottom.
“I just encourage our guys, each and every day, if they want to talk about it, talk about it . . . they have to let their emotions out.
“At the end of the day it’s a hard life lesson but you have to start to move on.”
Lang knew it was time “to start to move on” when his fellow GMs started calling to talk trade. Oh, sure, they would ask about Robinson. And they would ask how Lang was holding up. And, oh, by the way, how’s Kendal McArdle doing?
“Yeah,” Lang says, flashing a grin. “Now that you’re struggling, they want McArdle, but they’re also calling about other guys.”
McArdle, who was cut from Canada’s national junior team a year ago, is seen by some as perhaps the most marketable forward in the WHL today.
But as poorly as the Warriors have done of late, they went into last night’s games only two points out of an East Division playoff spot. And making the playoffs is huge to a small-market franchise like the Warriors.
“Right now I feel that it’s extremely important to make the playoffs, being a small-market team,” Lang says.
And furthermore, he adds, “Right now I feel with (McArdle) in our lineup, it’s our best chance to make the playoffs.”
And so it is that Lang’s thoughts begin to turn to the chase for a playoff spot. But all the while you know that a part of him is in a hospital room in New Westminster
by Gregg Drinnan
www.kamloopsnews.ca
There isn’t anything in the manual for WHL general managers that prepares a person for what Chad Lang has been through since Oct. 22.
A native of Regina, Lang, today the general manager of the Moose Jaw Warriors, was in the Agridome on March 1, 1987, when Pats forward Brad Hornung was checked from behind and left a quadriplegic.
Lang couldn’t have known then that the day would come when he would have to deal with a similar tragedy.
As the general manager of a WHL team, you are responsible for the young men on your roster and only Lang knows how incredibly hard it was to make a call to Garrett Robinson’s parents and tell them their son had been seriously injured in an auto accident.
That’s what the 28-year-old Lang had to deal with Oct. 22 after he got a 6:50 a.m. call on his cellphone telling him that goaltender Joey Perricone and forwards Carter Smith and Robinson had been in an accident.
While Perricone and Smith suffered minor injuries and have returned to the lineup, Robinson, an 18-year-old from Surrey, suffered head trauma. After 13 days in Regina General Hospital, he was flown to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster on Nov. 4.
“I don’t know if you can ever be prepared or be trained for this,” Lang said prior to watching the Kelowna Rockets and Kamloops Blazers on Tuesday night at the Interior Savings Centre.
The accident happened at 6:41 a.m. Upon receiving the phone call, Lang, who had just returned home from a scouting trip to the U.S., headed to the accident scene. He then went to the hospital in Moose Jaw to check on his players.
By 7:15 a.m., he was on the phone with Robinson’s parents, Carol and Randy.
“It’s the hardest call I’ve ever had to make in my life,” Lang says.
Within 45 minutes, Robinson’s parents had a flight booked and arrangements had been made for his brother, Matt, to travel from Anchorage, where he was playing with the ECHL’s Aces.
“You just go ahead and do things the way you would want your son or daughter to be looked after,” Lang said. “That’s kind of the approach I’ve taken.”
Lang doesn’t hide the fact that “it’s been a tough three weeks” but he is quick to add he has received a lot of support, especially from his wife, Shaulen, and their two boys.
“I’ve also been fortunate the league has been outstanding and our partners have been very supportive,” he says. “We talk about our league and our partners, but the fans . . . the fans of the Western Hockey League have been tremendous.”
The Warriors have set up the Garrett Robinson Recovery Fund. With some teams still holding fund-raisers, Lang says the fund now contains about $80,000.
That includes $5,000 from the coaches and players of the NHL’s Boston Bruins. It turns out that former Blazers and Rockets head coach Marc Habscheid, who now is on the Bruins’ coaching staff, worked a couple of practices with the Warriors last season.
Lang spent most of Monday with Robinson and came away feeling somewhat positive.
“He looked good,” Lang says. “He’s communicating . . . he uses his hands a lot. From where he was in Regina to where he is now, I see big improvement.
“Each and every day, he is slightly improving. We haven’t got any medical update . . . but he is responding well. They’ve had him up, sitting in a wheelchair. They have tried a couple of times to get him to stand up with assistance but he doesn’t have his centre of gravity.
“That’s all part of the rehabilitation . . . to push him a little more each day.”
There was more progress Wednesday when Robinson, whose jaw is wired, spoke for the first time since the accident, asking Lang to pass along best wishes to his teammates prior to last night’s game against the visiting Portland Winter Hawks.
Lang feels it’s important that people understand Robinson’s situation isn’t going to change overnight. In fact, he says it will be a matter of months, not days or weeks.
“It’s going to be a long, long process,” Lang says. “I have talked with the doctors and that’s what they’ve said . . . with the severity of his condition, it’s going to be a long process.”
Lang knows, too, that there are others who need his attention, like the other 23 players on the Warriors’ roster.
“A lot of times,” he says, “those guys are hidden with this situation but they all have issues. It’s a matter of trying to deal with their emotions and spending a lot of time with them and helping them deal with things.”
The Warriors went on something of a tear (3-1-1-0) after the accident, but have since tailed off and have lost five in a row. All of which Lang says has to do with emotion.
“I think our guys really wanted to play well for Garrett,” he says. “Now we’re kind of struggling. I think a lot of emotions went through those players. At times they’re on a high and at times they’re at rock bottom.
“I just encourage our guys, each and every day, if they want to talk about it, talk about it . . . they have to let their emotions out.
“At the end of the day it’s a hard life lesson but you have to start to move on.”
Lang knew it was time “to start to move on” when his fellow GMs started calling to talk trade. Oh, sure, they would ask about Robinson. And they would ask how Lang was holding up. And, oh, by the way, how’s Kendal McArdle doing?
“Yeah,” Lang says, flashing a grin. “Now that you’re struggling, they want McArdle, but they’re also calling about other guys.”
McArdle, who was cut from Canada’s national junior team a year ago, is seen by some as perhaps the most marketable forward in the WHL today.
But as poorly as the Warriors have done of late, they went into last night’s games only two points out of an East Division playoff spot. And making the playoffs is huge to a small-market franchise like the Warriors.
“Right now I feel that it’s extremely important to make the playoffs, being a small-market team,” Lang says.
And furthermore, he adds, “Right now I feel with (McArdle) in our lineup, it’s our best chance to make the playoffs.”
And so it is that Lang’s thoughts begin to turn to the chase for a playoff spot. But all the while you know that a part of him is in a hospital room in New Westminster