March 9, 2000:
Reflections on Carbo's Injury

On March 3, I was watching ESPN’s coverage of Dallas vs. Detroit when I lost sight of the regular appearance of #21. Nevertheless, there had been no incident on screen, nor mention of any mishap since Grant Marshall went down in some discomfort middle of the second. I confess it was such a wild game that for awhile I just enjoyed the action. But when the third period got underway and Carbo’s absence became more conspicuous, I was puzzled, then worried. At last my husband came down from listening to Dallas radio in our bedroom. "Ralph and Razor said Guy’s out with a wrist injury," David said, beating ESPN with the announcement by several minutes.

I was stunned. Why so? Because in a couple of weeks I would be travelling from Milwaukee to three games in Chicago and Dallas. Guy’s 40th birthday game, which I had looked forward to all season, was six days away. Our annual—and probably final—1,000 mile Carbo Pilgrimage was 17 days away.

I rewound my videotape to find the last time Guy appeared on the ice. He seemed to barely collide with a Red Wing just off the right edge of the screen, possibly while heading to the bench. It was inconclusive. I couldn’t even see the fact that his right hand got snagged in Kirk Maltby’s jersey…

The next day’s papers from Texas said not a word. (Funny how matters which are of supreme importance to some, can matter not a whit to the press.) Tuesday morning’s news was that Carbo awaited MRI results.

Players get hurt every day in this game. This year for the Dallas Stars, that has seemed almost literally true. How fortunate I have felt this season not to be a big fan of Lehtinen or Skrudland or Nieuwendyk, having to deal with watching months of pain and frustration. No, the determined 39-year-old managed to keep playing through his ailments virtually the entire season.

Until now. Until 15 days out from my trip, when I read that Guy fractured his wrist and would probably be out for three weeks.

It was a hairline fracture, and in the great scheme of things, even within the smaller scheme of the NHL, a relatively small disaster. But try to have that perspective when you’ve just learned you have probably seen your hero play hockey in person for the last time.

So in spite of my broken heart I tried to have some sympathy for the man with the broken wrist, and for the team that was going to have to get by without him for three weeks. But all I could think of was standing at the glass for warmups in Chicago on March 18, wearing Guy’s 16-year-old Habs sweater, while he was spending the day on the IR list. Perspective evaded me for a good twelve hours…

…until I read the next morning’s headlines. My former favorite player, Ed Belfour, had been arrested for assault and resisting arrest.

I make no judgment here about that incident, or about Eddie as a player and a person. That isn’t my right or my responsibility. Nevertheless, I know a couple of years ago what this news would have done to me, and it would have hit a lot harder than the news of a hairline fracture, regardless of the timing.

There are things that Guy Carbonneau has been able to control about his career, and those things he could not. He couldn’t control how long he had to spend in junior and minor league hockey before a place opened for him on the Canadiens, but he could play his absolute best while waiting. He couldn’t control how his team would choose to use him, but when they did tell him how to serve their needs, he could learn do it fabulously well. He couldn’t control his bout of tendonitis in 1992-93, but he could hang on to his faith that he would come back from it. He couldn’t control when he was traded, or called a has-been, but he could keep fighting to prove his worth.

Carbonneau couldn’t control accidents, or other players, or those who managed him. But he could control how he played, and how he lived.

So he couldn’t control tangling his hand in Kirk Maltby’s jersey, and suffering a broken wrist at the worst possible time for a certain one of his fans.

But he could control living out two decades in the NHL as a man of determination, loyalty, integrity, and honor.

When Guy really is gone for good, gone from TV, gone from the ice, this is what will have irrevocable permanence: that his honor never failed. Maybe he can’t give me those three hockey games, but he has given me something much more rare and precious, something that will last a lifetime:

A true hero.

Photos by Brad Amodeo

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Webmaster's Note: To find out how this story ends, please read "Darkest Before the Dawn."