FanHouse Halloween

How can we not go through Hallowe'en mentioning gore? How can we not mention gore and bring up the goriest incident the NHL has ever experienced?

For those feint of heart, I'd skip this altogether. Otherwise, let us recount one of the scariest incidents in the league's history, just to spook the hell out of you.

March 22, 1989 - Clint Malarchuk nearly bled to death on the ice after taking a skate blade to the throat. As defender Uwe Krupp and Blackhawks forward Steve Tuttle drove towards the net, Tuttle feel and somehow his skate ended up hitting Malarchuk in the worst spot possible.

I was 10 years old at the time, and remember seeing the incident on TV. It still remains one of my most vivid memories from that period in my life, and my first real experience with anything close to death (other than the deer my father shot on his hunting trips). I can't imagine being one of his teammates on the ice, feeling helpless at Malarchuk continued to lose blood at an alarming rate.

"I did think I was done," said Malarchuk 13 years later, "Somewhere I'd heard that if you cut your jugular vein you've got a matter of minutes, like three minutes. I was going through the minutes preparing to die. I thought I had just three minutes to live and I've got a lot of repenting to do in three minutes."

The sight was so grizzly that 2 spectators suffered heart attacks and 3 of Malarchuk's teammates vomited while still on the ice.

It was estimated that if the skate hit 1/8 inch higher on Malarchuk's jugular, he would have been dead within 2 minutes. In the dressing room and on his way to the hospital, doctors spent 90 minutes and used over 300 stitches to close the wound.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

When I return to the place where I earned my education as a 15 year old, I'm usually greeted with a barrage of jokes about how little I make and how I still suck at Math. Sidney Crosby, on the other hand, returned to Minnesota last night for the first time since he played hockey at Shattuck-St. Mary's School in 2002-03 -- and he was greeted with a sellout crowd, which watched the Pittsburgh captain's 4-point night (1 G, 3 A) in the Penguins' 4-2 win over the Wild. Sid tied a personal record last night by scoring a point in each of his last 10 games. He also absolutely owned Josh Harding on a third-period breakaway for his only goal; I don't want to say Crosby made Harding his bitch on the play, but if you see a goalie in a Minnesota Wild jersey getting two plates of food from the prison cafeteria line, now you'll now why.

The most lasting image for me from last night's game, carried by The Deer-Hunting and Cage-Fighting Network VERSUS here in the U.S., was an interview Crosby did after the win. His Penguins hat was riding low on his head, the brim casting a shadow over his eyes and obscuring them from the camera, giving him an almost sinister quality as he spoke.

Memo to Sidney Crosby: Keep that look. As I've said before, you're much more valuable to the NHL as a quasi-villain than as the sweetheart-on-skates the League tries to make you out to be in the press clippings. We need less glowing Messiah-on-skates puff pieces like this one from Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (reg. may be required) and more about how Crosby is so talented, so gifted and so blessed with hockey riches early in his career that he's the player you love and that you also love to hate. Jordan had that quality. Mario had it. Tom Brady has it now. And it's in Sidney somewhere ... or else Alexander Ovechkin wouldn't have gained his fame and been named the NHL's top rookie in 2005-06 while campaigning as the anti-Crosby.

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Hockey Fans on Halloween, Brad Boyes, Most Embarrassing Stat Line of the Night, 'Jagr Is a Crybaby Pouter,' Games You Need To Watch Tonight and a famous goalie mask and a horror icon on "The Arsenio Hall Show".)