On Friday December 30^th in a JV hockey game between the Benilde-St. Margaret and the Wayzata Trojans took place. During that game an event happened that will change sophomore Jack Jablonski’s life. During the second period of the game, Jablonski was checked by two Trojans and went down hard. After being down on the ice for quite some time, his parents knew something was wrong. His father went down to the ice and when he arrived to Jack’s side, Jack told him, “Dad, I can’t feel anything”. Jablonski was taken off on a stretcher and was rushed to HCMC medical center for further evaluation on his injuries. After evaluation from doctors, it was concluded that Jablonski’s spinal cord was severed and two vertebrae were fractured. Jablonski had surgery on Wednesday morning to fuse the damaged vertebrae. Jablonski’s injury will definitely change the game of hockey and how checking will be viewed.

When Matt Velasco (10) when asked about how he thinks that the game will be changed he responded with “I think players will be a little more hesitant about checking and refs and coaches will be stricter about how the game is played”. For sure hockey will be cracking down on checking and making sure it is much safer for everybody.

Hockey has always and will most likely always be one of the roughest sports to play and hockey officials will have to crack down and eventually do what’s best for the game of hockey.

High schools all over Minnesota have come together in support of Jack Jablonski. T-shirts and wristbands were created to support the hockey player and 100% of the donations will go to the family. The radio station even did a dedication to Jack by making their station name K-JABS for 13 hours on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 and sold t-shirts. As well all of their proceeds went to the Jablonski family.