This is one night after a game these guys will never ever forget.
below is a article from www.timesunion.com
Bloodied and dazed
As hockey players sleep, bus goes out of control on icy road, leaving several seriously injured
By DAVID FILKINS AND PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writers
First published in print: Friday, February 20, 2009
BECKET, Mass. Bodies hurtled through the air as windows smashed.
"Guys were flying around like ping-pong balls," Albany River Rats left wing Joe Jensen said of the team's bus wreck around 3 a.m. Thursday.
Announcer John Hennessy flew from his seat and crashed into equipment manager Jason McGrath, the force of the blow blasting both men through the air and onto the Massachusetts Turnpike.
"They went right through the window," forward Ryan Weston said.
Jensen smashed his head and passed out.
Weston was pinned to the floor.
Coach Jeff Daniels, sitting in the front, flew over the railing and landed on the driver, Stanley Novak.
When the mangled bus came to a stop on the snow-covered highway, the front was on the guard rail and the back was in the roadway. Players had been sleeping moments earlier on a return trip from a game in Lowell. Now they were piled in the front, dazed and bleeding.
Backpacks had been thrown through the broken windows, landing high in trees more than 30 yards away.
How do hockey players, accustomed to pain and blood and violence, respond when faced with danger and chaos off the rink ice? They do the sort of thing that happened next on a desolate stretch of highway in the Berkshires.
No one screamed. No one panicked. Voices could be heard through the darkness as the 29 men scuttled around, searching for displaced shoes and jackets.
"Are you OK?"
"Yeah, you?
"I think so."
The danger wasn't over.
The undercarriage of the bus faced down the highway and was barely visible through the snowy night. Tractor trailers rumbled by, shaking the bus as players and staff scrambled toward safety.
With the bus on its side, the inaccessible door faced skyward. Those in the back climbed out through a broken window and others tumbled through the roof hatch.
Assistant coach Geordie Kinnear kicked out the cracked windshield, cleared the glass, and other players and staff made their way outside.
Skates, sticks and pads were strewn across the highway.
Kinnear stopped traffic. Other drivers pulled over to help.
Few players wore coats and some were barefoot as they limped across the road to the median.
Daniels looked out at the scene. Justin Peters' goalie mask lay at his feet, pressed flat by the bus or a passing semi.
For 15 minutes, they huddled in the frigid air, wearing flannel pants and sweatshirts, waiting for an emergency crew to arrive. All were conscious, but some were in pain, others bleeding.
A fire truck arrived soon after, then one ambulance, then another. The severely injured were rushed to Berkshire Medical Center. The rest piled onto a school bus and headed toward the hospital.
Players Nicolas Blanchard, 21; Casey Borer, 23; Jensen, 25; and Jonathan Paiement, 22, were hospitalized, as was the broadcaster, Hennessy, 47.
Their injuries were listed as serious. Daniels, the coach, said some had broken bones, but added none of the injuries were life- or career-threatening.
Reached by phone at the hospital, Jensen said he had a concussion.
From his hospital bed, Blanchard said he had a number of cuts, but played down his injuries the way 6-foot-3, 203-pound centers usually do.
"I'm not too bad," he said.
Six hours after the crash, Daniels walked down the hall of the hospital, peeking into the room of each player who had been admitted.
One was sleeping, another was groggy. The other two, Daniels said in true hockey language, were still getting "worked on."
The rest of the players were being checked before they could leave. Those who had been cleared waited in the emergency room lobby, munching on food and drinking coffee provided by the hospital. Most had not slept, and they talked little as they slumped in chairs.
When the last player had been examined, the group headed back out into the cold toward a white Yankee Trails bus identical to the one that had crashed seven hours earlier.
They boarded the bus with their heads down. They did not speak. A few had black eyes. One had a bruised cheek. No one said whether the injuries came during the game or in the crash.
They were shocked, dazed, this group of hockey players who nearly died on ice.
Hospitalized Rats defenser describes horrifying crash
Four players, announcer remain hospitalized; team prepares for 2 p.m. news conference
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer
Last updated: 12:30 p.m., Friday, February 20, 2009
PITTSFIELD, Mass. - River Rats defenseman Joe Jensen, diagnosed with a Grade-3 concussion, is amazed there were no fatalities or life-threatening injuries following Thursday's early-morning bus crash on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
"I'm kind of shaken up," he said Thursday afternoon from Berkshire Medical Center, where three other players and a team announcer are being treated for concussions, lacerations and other injuries. He had undergone an MRI, CAT Scan and X-rays, as well as a battery of tests.
"I think the other guys are doing OK, too," he said after speaking with his teammates.
"I'm not too bad," forward Nicolas Blanchard said from his hospital bed, sounding groggy and slightly disoriented. He had not yet been given a precise diagnosis, although he suffered cuts from broken glass. He was asleep and on the low side of the bus when it flipped, seated near the section that slammed into a guardrail.
"Blanch was bleeding pretty badly afterwards. I was sitting across from him on the high side and got thrown onto him when it flipped," Jensen said.
Jensen said defenseman Casey Borer "took a really bad blow" and he was uncertain if he had broken bones or what his diagnosis was.
Jonathan Paiement "suffered a bad blow to the head" and may have suffered other injuries, Jensen said.
Broadcaster John Hennessy "was pretty shaken up and was bleeding a lot from cuts," Jensen said.
Jensen was asleep on the Yankee Trails motor coach and was jolted awake when he felt the bus sliding sideways on the icy, snow-covered highway and then it flipped on its side in a terrifying, chaotic moment.
"Guys were flying around like ping-pong balls, thrown into the ceiling," he said. "Glass was shattering everywhere and my head smashed into something hard and I blacked out for a second. It all happened so fast. There was a lot of blood and it looked real bad. I thought someone might have had a fatal blow."
When Jensen came to, he found himself in a jumble of limbs on the low side of the bus that was wrapped around a guardrail. As the dazed players stumbled out of the wreckage into the wintry darkness, some of them in bare feet and T-shirts, they realized part of the bus was sticking out into the highway and semi-trucks were bearing down on the disabled bus at high speed.
"Thank God no one was killed," he said. "We're really lucky everyone got away from that bus alive. It's unbelievable everyone survived. It was the worst thing I've ever been through."
Jensen said there was initial anger among the players after the first bus broke down and they had to wait in a parking lot for more than two hours before a replacement bus arrived. He did not sense any animosity toward Yankee Trails driver Stanley Novak.
"We realize now the roads were bad and it was an accident," Jensen said. "It's not like the bus driver tried to crash."
The crash is being investigated by Massachusetts State Police and is centering on whether Novak's speed was prudent for the icy road conditions. The Turnpike Authority had posted a reduced 40 mph speed limit for that stretch when the crash occurred.
Jensen hopes the River Rats cancel the next couple games, "out of respect for us who got injured."
