Clint Malarchuk is a hockey player from Canada who played as a goalkeeper. The athlete has Ukrainian roots, as you might guess by last name. He was born in May 1961 in the city of Grand Perry. The athlete is widely known not only for his achievements, but also for the fact that once on the ice he was on the verge of death.
Carier start
Clint from childhood loved sports and at an early age began to practice hockey. The first athlete's team was the Canadian Portland Winter Hawks. At the age of seventeen, he made his debut for the club and continued to play for him for three years. In 1981, Clint transferred to his first professional club, which was Quebec Nordics. From that moment, the athlete’s career began, which will be full of ups and downs.
Professional career
Goalkeeper Clint Malarchuk managed to play for many teams, including the Washington Capitals, Las Vegas Thunder, Buffalo Sabers, San Diego Galls. But Malarchuk did not stay long in any of them. For four years he played for the Las Vegas Thunder, and this is the longest period in the same team.
The hockey player could not be called an overly successful athlete, and his statistics speak for themselves. For his entire professional career, he has accounted for nearly fifty victories and as many as 130 defeats.
In 1989, an event occurred that almost killed Clint Malarchuk. What happened to the famous athlete, you can find out more.
Terrible injury
In the spring of 1989, Buffalo Sabers played with the St. Louis Blues. The game was the most ordinary, and nothing boded ill. The culmination of the duel was the struggle of the Buffalo defender and the attacking Blues player. The episode took place near the gates of Malarchuk. No one could have thought how terrible the next hours would become. In the heat of the fight, one of the players fell and put his foot up. It turned out that the blade of the ridge caught the goalkeeper’s neck and cut the carotid artery. The goalkeeper fell on the ice, and at that moment everyone watched with a sinking heart . The game was stopped, but not everyone immediately understood what had happened. Dr. Buffalo Sabers, Jim Pizzutelli, rushed to the injured goalkeeper to help. He instantly squeezed the vein from which the blood flowed, and led the player into the tribune room. The hockey player was taken to the hospital, and the team doctor saved his life by stopping the blood immediately. At the hospital, doctors managed to suture a torn artery and the player survived. After some time, it will become known that Pizzutelli was a doctor in Vietnam, and therefore managed to orientate himself so lightning fast during the tragedy. Usually, when a carotid artery is damaged, a person bleeds in 2-3 minutes.
The goalkeeper himself after a while recalled that in his thoughts there was only one desire - to die with dignity, and to do it not on ice, because his mother was watching the game.
After this dramatic event, the World Hockey Association ordered all goalkeepers to wear a mask with protection for the neck.
Today, Clint Malarchuk recalls those events with horror. Photos from that match can be shocking, so people with a weak mentality are not recommended to watch them.
Life after an injury
Clint Malarchuk managed to recover quite quickly after a difficult injury. Almost all the doctors recommended him to leave the sport, or at least wait until the end of the 1988-1989 regular season. Despite all the persuasion and recommendations, the goalkeeper did not want to spend a lot of time recovering and wanted to return to the ice as quickly as possible. It's hard to believe, but Malarchuk in the same season was able to return to the playground to the joy of many fans who watched his recovery.
Unfortunately, the goalkeeper could not fully recover from the injury. Clint began to haunt nightmares, which negatively affected his game. All this led to the fact that the athlete began depression. For many years he fought with her and several times even ended up in the hospital. Despite all the events that took place with Malarchuk, he played at an amateur level before 1997 and only then completed his career.
Coaching
The famous hockey player Clint Malarchuk after the end of his playing career tried to become a coach, but he did not gain much fame and success. He has been a coach for such famous clubs as the Las Vegas Thunder and Idaho Steelheads. In the 2002-2003 season, he served as a goalkeeper teacher for the Florida Panthers. Four years later, Clint Malarchuk goes to Columbus Blue Jackets and again becomes a coach, he worked in this team for three years. In 2010, he held the position of assistant coach at Atlanta Thrashers. In the summer of 2011, the once-famous goalkeeper became the manager of Calgary Flames and stayed here for three seasons. Three years later, the collaboration between the coach and the team was discontinued.
Life outside of sports
The family life of a goalkeeper who suffered a terrible injury, has developed more successfully than a gaming career. He has a beloved wife and children.
After the end of coaching, Clint unexpectedly for fans and relatives decided to get a veterinarian education. As it turned out later, he needed it in order to realize a long-standing idea - to breed ostriches on his ranch.
The former athlete is also known for often giving lectures in various educational institutions that teach children and adolescents how to behave in order to avoid serious injuries at home.
Not so long ago, in 2014, Malarchuk released a book in which he described his life and, of course, how he managed to survive in the spring of 1989, when he was only a few minutes from death.
Broken psyche
In the fall of 2008, as a coach of one of the hockey teams, Clint Malarchuk goes hunting. For unknown reasons, he shot himself, but miraculously managed to survive.
An investigation into the episode confirmed that it was a suicide attempt, but the athlete himself denied this . He stated that this happened by accident, through negligence. It was difficult to believe in this, since the nature of the wound indicated otherwise. Four years after the incident, he admits that he really wanted to get his hands on himself because of the long depression and nightmares. Alas, the memories of the fateful events of 1989 haunted him for a long time.
What they say about the legendary goalkeeper
Even people unfamiliar with hockey still know who Clint Malarchuk is. A neck injury made him extremely popular, especially after the video from that match appeared on the Internet.
Unfortunately, because of the incident, he could not realize his full potential, although at the time of the event he was already twenty-eight years old. Many experts say with confidence that Clint was an openly weak player and far from the most powerful manager. And this is difficult to argue, because in his career there is not a single significant award that could be put in contrast to these words.
Here he is, the famous goalkeeper Clint Malarchuk. The injury did not allow him to realize his full potential, but he did not lose heart, but continued to go on the ice. This person deserves special respect for giving lessons on how to avoid injuries in everyday life.
No matter how his playing and coaching career has developed, many people will remember him as a guy who could overcome a lot just to get back on the ice and delight his fans with his game. And although after an injury in his life there were difficult periods, he successfully coped with them.
Today, the former goalkeeper is a famous person and often appears on television. As a rule, in many programs he talks about that terrible injury, as well as about his future life. Clint also took part in various scientific programs for some time, where, using modern equipment, scientists tried to find out how he managed to survive that evening.
Clint Malarchuk, in his own way, is a legendary person whose story will shock and surprise not only sports fans, but also ordinary people for a long time to come.