From @NaokoFunayama on Twitter
Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins couldn’t make it to last week’s break-up day and media interviews due to the small fact that he was at the hospital, but he made it up to the media by holding a very special availability today. The bulk of it was devoted to explaining just what he was playing with and how he’s doing now. Get ready: this is kind of an intense timeline of injury.
We can now piece together the timeline of his injuries–which, by the way, were the most he’s ever played with at one time. In Game 4, he was battling in the corners for the puck with former Chicago Blackhawk Michal Frolik when he tore the rib cartilage on his left side. In Game 5, pile on another injury: he got hit in the ribs and felt that area get worse, hence that replay of him laboring on the ice. That was when his night ended early so he could go to a Chicago-area hospital and just get examined.
After that, he received some advice from the team medical staff and specialists regarding his ability to play in Game 6, which he, of course, decided to do. In pregame warmups, he decided to get an injection that basically tells the nerves in the area to be quiet and stop sending pain signals for a while. But trying to protect his frozen ribs and do his job at the same time in that game was what ended up separating his shoulder.
As far as the lung goes, they took an X-ray before Game 6 and it wasn’t punctured or collapsed at that time. After the game, he felt a little trouble breathing, but it wasn’t urgent–he was able to tell the media right away what he was dealing with injury-wise, but then he went to the hospital. During the game, he got another painkilling injection, so at that time, that’s probably when the collapse happened. A collapsed lung is treatable–basically, they insert a tube through the rib cage to get the lung back to normal, but it does require a bit of a hospital stay.
But even with all of that stuff going on in his body, causing physical pain, what hurt him the most was still getting that far and losing it all. He is sure that any of his teammates would have done the same thing in his situation and is aware that some might find his decision to play a little foolish, but pointed to other Bruins who embodied that old mantra about pain being temporary but pride forever (such as Gregory Campbell).
The good news is that he’s feeling a lot better, doesn’t need any surgery and is going to make a full recovery. He just needs some time to let his ribs and shoulder heal. Bruins seem to be known for superhuman healing times, though–the general estimation for thoracic outlet syndrome, which Adam McQuaid had, is months of R&R but he was ready to go much sooner than that.
Okay, so now that that’s all known, there were other things discussed. He made mention of his teammate (and often linemate) Tyler Seguin, who got called out by general manager Peter Chiarelli. In fact, he referred to that call-out as a moment Seguin can grow from and gave him credit as still being a young guy with a lot to learn.
He’s also going into the last year of his contract with the team that believed in him back when he was a young guy himself, younger so than Seguin. In the future, though he doesn’t know when, he’d like to get a new deal worked out that would help keep him a Bruin for life.
It would be well-deserved indeed.
