Cardiac events a frightening, familiar sight in the NHL

The horror that swept across the NFL when Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin collapsed and went into cardiac arrest during a game this week in Cincinnati was all too familiar to members of the hockey community.

Five players in the NHL over the past 25 years who collapsed during a game — terrifying scenes that stopped play while people scrambled to help — were diagnosed with a heart-related issue of some kind.

Big defenseman Chris Pronger went down after taking a puck to the chest. Jiri Fischer, Rich Peverley and Jay Bouwmeester all collapsed on the bench. Ondrej Pavelec went down on the ice.

All recovered — a couple of them went on to play for years — and the incidents prompted the NHL to adjust procedures to prepare for and handle cardiac events, rare as they may be.

“It allows you to make sure that your protocols are working,” said Pronger, who suffered from the condition commotio cordis when he took a slap shot to the chest during a playoff game in Detroit in 1998. “You’re able to kind of see where things went right, where things went wrong and you’re able to really kind of dig in and enhance or say, ‘No, this is exactly what we planned for, this is exactly what happened and this is how we’re supposed to manage and take care of these situations.’”

Hockey has had enough of these situations to make doctors and trainers ready for handling the next one.

The NHL's emergency action plan requires at least three physicians, two ambulances and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) at all arenas, which now have removable benches to clear space for medical attention.

It's a plan that has evolved: electrocardiogram (EKG) tests first became mandatory for players in 1998, and in 2005 a doctor was simply required to be within 50 feet of the benches and AEDs to be in...