An injury to Tucker Tynan led to the postponement of the game between the London Knights and the Niagara Ice Dogs on Thursday night in St. Catharines, Ont.
Just 43 seconds into the second period, a puck was sent toward the IceDogs net, as Hunter Skinner of the Knights and Ivan Lodnia of Niagara skated toward the crease. The two players fell and went feet-first into Tynan, who was pushed back into the net. Both Skinner and Lodnia got up quickly and rejoined the play by Tynan remained down.
Play was whistled down almost immediately and training staff from both teams were summoned by players who could see there was a serious issue involving an apparent cut to Tynan’s leg.
Tynan, who is from Chicago, Ill., and is in his first year in the Ontario Hockey League, was attended to by trainers and medical personnel for a considerable amount of time as proper protocols were followed.
The 17-year old was eventually taken off the ice on a stretcher and transported to hospital. The IceDogs tweeted just before midnight that Tynan had undergone successful surgery and was “stable and safe in hospital.”
“You never expect an injury like that to occur so your first reaction is just to hope and pray for the player that has been hurt,” said Knights Associate General Manager Rob Simpson.
“Right now we are all praying for Tucker and hoping he can have a speedy recovery.”
Tynan has been one of the top goalies in the OHL this season, stepping into a heavy workload on an IceDogs team that saw a lot of players graduate at the end of last season. The game against London was his 24th appearance in 31 games and Tynan has posted a 3.80 goals against average and a .910 save percentage.
According to Crease Giants Tynan is one of the best goalies in the league in quality starts meaning he almost always turns in a better save percentage in games than the OHL average. Tynan ranks second in that stat category to only Nico Daws of the Guelph Storm who was just named one of the three goaltenders for Canada World Junior squad.
Once Tynan had been stretchered off the ice the question of whether to continue the game was addressed, and as Simpson said, a call was made very quickly not to continue.
“First and foremost, you look at the player on the team that was hurt and you examine the severity of the situation and depending on how the other players are doing, you make the decision on what to do with regard to the game.”
At that point the score was 2-1 London. Lodnia had scored on the power play for Niagara and Gerard Keane and Josh Nelson had scored for the Knights.
London and Niagara will return to the ice at the Meridian Centre later this season for a make-up game.
“We will look at that at another time.” admitted Simpson. “Between us and Niagara we will select another date to re-play the game.”
Right now, the most pertinent item is the health of Tucker Tynan.
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