The World of Sports through the eyes of a moron

Ok today i'm going to say a few things about the death of Alexei Cherepanov. For those of you who don't follow sports too closely, Cherepanov was a first round draft pick for the Rangers who died the other day at the age of 19 i believe, when he collapsed on the bench after a shift for his team Avengard Omsk of the KHL, which is basically Russia's NHL.

So first off, yes these things do happen, seems more and more often in sports lately. But that doesn't mean that they can't be prevented or at least safeguarded. Now i'm not one of those people who agrees with baby protecting the world which seems to be the trend. There's a sign and a warning on every little thing you see which is obviously companies or municipalities protecting themselves from potential lawsuits. "My son leaped off your bridge and broke his tailbone, and it said no jumping but it said nothing about no leaping, PAY UP!" Bullshit. Also i have a whole playground argument that i could get into. About how playgrounds for kids suck now, cause they're way too safe and no longer fun, accidents happen, and usually it's a matter of natural selection, if your kid's dumb enough to fall off a slide then he probably wasn't going to last to long anyways. That might push a few buttons.

So i've digressed but back to my point, you're a professional sports league paying competitive salaries with the NHL, millions of dollars for some players. Yet if you look at all the mistakes that were made that could have saved this kid's life, it's kind of disturbing. There is supposed to be an ambulance on site at every game, which is pretty obvious, considering the level of athleticism and speed in a contact sport. But there wasn't, they had left earlier in the game. There was supposed to be a working defibrilator at the arena, but apparently it wasn't functioning properly. Keep in mind every canadian arena, not just professional, but every single rink has a work defibrilator. One of my bosses here actually had a heart attack on the ice last year and was saved because the rink had a "WORKING" defibrilator. So not only that, when the ambulance is called, it takes them about 15 minutes to arrive. And do they have a working defibrilator in the ambulance, no of course not. So the kid's heart has stopped, he can't be revived, they finally get him to the hospital, and again he can't be revived.

Seems like a lot of issues doesn't it? Well there's more. Cherepanov had a blood disease called, "chronic ischemia", (www.tsn.ca) which is basically a lack of blood flow to the heart. So the KHL apparently does drug and blood tests just like the NHL, so if that was the case, why was he playing with this condition? At least that's what russian authorities are saying he had, but apparently it would be extremely rare for a 19 year old to have this disease and be playing at such a high level, with such a condition you would more likely be exhausted from playing hockey at such a high level day in and day out. So answers and excuses continue to pour in each day that passes. If there's one positive that will come out of all of this, it's that the KHL due to the embarassment of this incident will now up it's safety standards for sure and will be sternly monitored in the process. It's just sad that it always seems to cost such a high price to make change.