from Paul Hunter of the Toronto Star,
“Oh my gosh, I like to think of myself as a pretty strong hockey mom because I’ve seen pretty much all of it but I was instantly sick to my stomach — that sickening feeling when you just don’t know,” she says, recalling the overwhelming helplessness as the game broadcast unfolded 11 days ago.
The mother watched as her son, rubbery-legged and disoriented, was helped to the Ottawa dressing room. Then she waited.
After 20 minutes, the phone rang.
“He called and said, ‘I’m okay.’ . . . Of course, I was crying. Because I’m a mom I guess.”
“I knew she’d be worried,” the 23-year-old says of being the reassuring voice at the other end of the line. “As soon as I got everything figured out, I thought I should give her a call. It probably didn’t look too good on TV.”
No it didn’t. And as it got replayed over and over again on the highlight shows, fuelling the fighting-in-hockey debate, Dziurzynski became part of Canada’s hockey consciousness in just his 10th NHL game. Many Canadians now know his name even if they’d have no idea how to spell it.
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