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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SABRES v HURRICANES

May 21, 2006

Erik Cole

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Practice Day

Q. Have you been officially upgraded from out indefinitely to day-to-day?
ERIK COLE: I don't know. I don't know what the status is as far as what is going to be on game sheets but it was nice to get out there with the guys today.
Q. What has this whole ordeal been like for you? What is it like to get back out there today? Is it a culmination of a lot of things?
ERIK COLE: Well, I mean, the whole process has been pretty miserable at times, but the last probably two and a half, three weeks have been really progressive and they have been fun. It's been nice to get out of the big cervical thoracic brace and into the little collar and it seemed like right away I was working my way out of it. Just every day it seems to get better and better. I just hope that the healing is going along with that.
Q. Are you optimistic that you will be able to come back at some point, if not in this series than if you guys advance?
ERIK COLE: I am hopeful that if the next CT scan looks good and that both fractures are fully healed or close to being fully healed and if they are, we'll sit down with the doctors and talk about what the options are, what the repercussions are, sit down with my wife and figure it out.
Q. (Inaudible)
ERIK COLE: As of last week we were talking 10 to 14 days, it's not set in stone yet. This whole process, none of it has been set in stone. It's just, you can't timetable anything. It's basically the process, you have to just work your way through each step and each -- we're only planning on getting a CT scan if things continue to go well and I am able to tolerate getting up and down the ice. If there's anything neurological that goes wrong, then you have to back off and find out why and slow it down.
Q. Looking at 10 to 14 days as of sometime last week?
ERIK COLE: That was the initial thought that we threw out there, but I haven't talked with the specialist since last week, since they gave me the okay that there's no ligament damage and everything else has just been kind of progressing slowly.
Spent three days on the ice by myself, with a small group of guys and today I was able to get on the ice with the guys and plan to get on the ice with them the rest of this week and into next week and just hopefully things will continue to.
Q. How do you feel physically when you are going up and down the ice as opposed to when things were normal?
ERIK COLE: Actually I don't feel too bad. I don't feel like I am lagging behind out there too much. I am definitely still stiff, some things through my neck and my shoulders and stuff, but that's stuff that we're working out on a day-to-day basis. Actually some of it is has been stuff that was lingering prior to the injury. So it's tough to walk into a hockey room and pick one guy that's an actual healthy body and has normal anything, so yeah, we're working on all the kinks.
Q. Did Brooks Orpik ever get in touch with you, ever speak with you and apologize?
ERIK COLE: I've never talked with him. He tried to get in touch with me through Mark Recchi sometime end of March. At that point I think it was the day that I got put in the big brace, I got upgraded, I guess from the collar to that big brace and in hopes to avoid a surgery. And after the week that I had, and after the three weeks I had, for Reccs to come up to me and he just asked if he could pass along my number to Brooks and I told him no. I told him not to bother.
Q. If he tried to get in touch with you now, obviously he would be contrite. Would you forgive him? Would you speak to him?
ERIK COLE: Honestly I probably wouldn't even speak to him. If he feels that it's something that he needs to do for his benefit, whatever he can say it and get it off his chest, whatever. I am not looking for any apologies or whatever. I am looking forward to playing him again.
Q. Your situation obviously is directly comparable to the Steve Moore hit by Todd Bertuzzi. Do you recognize any similarities at all?
ERIK COLE: No, I don't think there's any way to compare those two. I think it's definitely two very, very different accidents. If you want to call it that, and it happened during the game. My whole take on it is, one, it happens a lot, especially as a forward, and especially with the new rules, not being able to hold up, you see a defenseman's back a lot. It's your decision to bury him into the glass or you let up and you carry him in or you wait a second, you let him turn, you bump him, whatever. He made his decision to bury me.
Q. A lot of people are saying that it's unavoidable, in your case probably not, but a lot of those hits from behind are unavoidable, it's instinctive, you are saying that he made a conscious decision?
ERIK COLE: Well, I am saying you make decisions out there. You either you play the game with respect for other players or you don't. That's the way I see it.
Q. Why won't you accept his apology?
ERIK COLE: Why should I? It's a game. He shouldn't have to apologize to me. But his comments in the paper, the next time he spoke in the paper, it wasn't -- you know, you hate to see bad things happen on the ice, but it is a sport. It's a contact sport and it's unfortunate, but hopefully he's going to be okay.
Q. How scary originally were the words "broken neck" to you?
ERIK COLE: I think scarier was flying home the next day and you are walking around with a broken neck. But I mean, it was a long night in that hospital and it was pretty tough to hear the doctor come up to you and tell you that you are lucky, really lucky. You don't feel that lucky sitting on a gurney with a broken neck, but it could have been much worse. Took me maybe a couple of days for that to settle in for that to sink in, but once it did, you really put it in perspective.
Q. I believe if it was one higher or one lower you would could have been paralyzed?
ERIK COLE: No, there's two fractures in the vertebrae, one that comes down from the top and the other one comes up from the bottom turns into the spinal canal. How that bone didn't go ahead and enter the spinal canal is, I don't know, is lucky.
Q. If it had?
ERIK COLE: If it had then I probably be a paraplegic.
Q. What has been the toughest thing sleeping with that collar on? I remember you saying that earlier.
ERIK COLE: The first two and a half weeks I was just in the little collar and didn't do very much more than lay in bed and sit on the couch and take my Percocet every three hours along with a muscle relaxer.
So I mean, that's how it was to start and then you start feeling better and neurologically I was fine the whole time, didn't have any numbness, tingling, whatever, you go to the specialist and he says, "I don't like the way this is looking. This is something I would do surgery on." Whoa, wait a minute, now it's changed. So we get a second opinion, decide to wait on it that's how I got put in that other brace, but that brace was better than getting put in a halo for six months.
Q. That was what the business news was last week where they told you?
ERIK COLE: No, it was actually about the six and a half week mark where we did another CT scan and the alignment looked really good and healing was going on. Obviously it wasn't fully healed at six and a half weeks but the alignment and everything looked really good. Both guys were extremely happy with how it was healing and where it was healing.
So I stayed in that, then we had a difference in opinions where one guy wanted me to stay in that big collar for another three weeks, the other guy told me I could start working my way out of it right away. I wore it for another week and a half, then went down to the collar and a week later started working my way out of that.
Q. What were your thoughts like in the moments, whether it be immediately, after learning what your situation was or in the days after?
ERIK COLE: Immediately after -- you are in Pittsburgh and in a hospital that I don't know these nurses or I don't really know the doctors. I thought it was great that Pittsburgh's team doctor came over and checked on me after the doctor at the hospital had already given me the news, but he came in and checked on me. It wasn't like I was sitting there with our assistant trainer Chris Stewart who was there with me because I was outside the MRI room sitting on a gurney waiting for like an hour and a half to go in for an MRI.
So just a million different things running through your head like, am I ever going to play again, stuff like that. A lot of the first couple of weeks you think about what could have happened or what could have been worse and think about what you could have done differently, what he could have done differently, everything. You can mind it to death.
Q. Alone with your thoughts, because you are in a different city, kind of a mind torture --
ERIK COLE: Yeah, I just kind of sat there and wasn't really sharing anything with the nurse that was there and kind of laid there quietly and thought about things, and got home the next evening was able to see my wife and kids. It's been a long process.
Q. In regard to taking your first hit, are you looking forward to it, dreading it? Just curious.
ERIK COLE: Taking it? I think I will probably go out there and look for a first hit before I let someone come into me. Either way.

End of FastScripts...

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