Kurt Jory

[Arthur Fonzerelli]

Former Warrior goalie Kurt Jory had his neck cut by a skate during a goal mouth collision in game between Jory's Brock University and the University of Windsor. Jory suffered a severed vein in his neck and was taken to a hospital in Windsor for emergency surgery. He was supposed to leave intensive care for a regular hospital bed sometime early this week. Doctors are happy with the results of the surgery and it is expected that Jory will be able to resume his career. Good Luck Kurt.

[WorkHorse]

Jory’s story has a happy ending
David Larkins

For an agonizing few moments, the worst possible thoughts passed through Kurt Jory’s mind.

As he laid on the ice at the Windsor Arena, blood gushing from his neck and feeling a pain he had never experienced before, the 21-year-old Brandonite didn’t know what was going to happen next.

A freshman goaltender with the Brock University Badgers men’s hockey team, Jory’s pulmonary vein was severed on Saturday by an errant skate blade from Windsor Lancer Danny Anger in an Ontario University Athletics conference game.

Just days after the frightening incident, Jory told the Brandon Sun in an interview on Tuesday that he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it off that ice.

“To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it or not. Just a bizarre feeling,” Jory said via telephone from his hospital room in Windsor, Ont.. “I just basically told them if I don’t make it through this, tell my family I love them.”

Jory quickly got an indication of the severity of the injury.

“Right after it happened my shoulder just felt excruciating and I thought initially that my shoulder’s dislocated, something’s not right. I took my helmet off and saw the blood squirting out and saw some of the looks on the guys’ faces and that’s when I realized it was a pretty scary situation.”

Badgers freshman defenceman Isaac Smeltzer stayed with Jory on the ice, holding his teammate’s hand and encouraging him through those uncertain moments. Jory was rushed to hospital and underwent successful surgery that night.

Brock head coach Murray Nystrom stayed with Jory through the weekend and only just returned to St. Catharines, Ont., on Tuesday.

“I think, for me, once the trainers were there and they were able to stem the bleeding, I felt like he was going to be OK,” Nystrom told the Sun. “... It was a pretty emotional period of time for everybody that was in the (arena). ... He had to go into the operating room pretty quickly to repair the severed vein and I was able to talk to the surgeon after the surgery and he felt really good about how things went. So when an expert like that feels good you kinda sigh a little bit.”

IVs were taken out of Jory on Monday and the former Brandon Wheat King and Neepawa Native was up and walking for the first time.

While still under the care of the staff at Windsor’s Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital, Jory’s condition has improved and he is expecting to be back on the ice again, although when remains to be seen.

“As scary an incident as this is, it’s a freak accident,” Jory said. “... Hockey has given me so much opportunity in my life, I wouldn’t let something like this take it away from me.”

The accident ended what had been a tremendous first semester for Jory and the Badgers.

Brock jumped out to a 7-5-3 record to hold top spot in the OUA’s Mid-West Division with Jory a top-10 goalie in the nation, posting a 2.34 goals against average and .911 save percentage.

It is an unfortunate irony that Canadian university sports go largely unnoticed by national media, yet Jory’s injury thrust the gregarious Vincent Massey graduate into a larger spotlight with interviews and stories circulating around the country. And he’s fine with that.

“I think it’s good for me to inform people that, even though it is a scary incident, I am going to be all right, it’s not life and death,” he said. “If it was me watching and reading up on it, I’d definitely want to know more ... or at least how the guy was doing.”

Jory will get his scholastic life in order when he finally returns to the St. Catharines campus, something that will delay his return home for Christmas. But he’ll surely appreciate the chance to be back home with friends and family a little more this year.


“Family’s one of those things you can get through anything with,” he said.