Posted on 06/15/2015 10:36:09 AM PDT by Borges
CHICAGO — The Chicago Blackhawks are one win away from winning another Stanley Cup championship.
But one of the team’s ambassadors can’t enjoy it, because he doesn’t know its happening.
Hall of Famer Stan Mikita spent his entire 22-year NHL career in Chicago.
He’s now 75 and suffers from a brain disorder called Lewy body.
The disorder can lead to dementia, hallucinations, and memory loss.
Mikita’s wife, Jill, tells the Chicago Tribune, “His mind is completely gone. I don’t like to use that term, but there’s no other way to describe it.”
“He doesn’t know he’s missing out. He has no idea.”
Since January, Mikita has been spending most of his days at a facility that keeps his body healthy.
But he has no recollection of his playing career, and he’s unable to care for himself.
“I pray everyday that he goes because this is no quality of life. There is no dignity,” said Mikita’s daughter Jane.
Mikita is the Blackhawks’ all-time leading scorer.
She must not want to see those pension checks continue which is why some do everything possible to keep demented family members legally alive.
The odd irony is that he was the first major star to begin wearing a helmet regularly (did so in January 1968 after Bill Masterton died from a head injury). The leftists who wrote the sports pages back then (predictably) made a big hero out of him for doing so.
look at that stick! It looks like it was cut from a 2x4.
Wasn’t Mikita famous for the “banana blade?” That one looks like it has no curve at all.
..being an old time Rangers fan and remembering when the NHL
ONLY televised game was on Saturday nights..*smiles*
Does anyone remember an American Indian defensive player who used to drop to his knees to block slap shots from post....who played during Mikita’s early career? Boucha keeps coming to mind, but I’m not sure. Maybe he played for the the Red Wings
No, I was not implying that or anything negative about Mikita in that respect. However, the media, in covering the NHL, has often tended to portray the headgear as the cure all for the problems regarding injuries that the league has faced over the years.
It was not until 1979 that helmets were legally grandfathered in (new players from that time onward were required to wear them, ones under professional contract at the time were not). This was not done without controversy, as many expressed concerns that helmets do in fact create more problems in terms of an increased sense of invincibility and decreased respect amongst players as well as carelessness with high sticking and other related offences. All resulting in potentially more injuries (particularly concussions and neck and back injuries). This now quite often happens in the game today and these concerns have often been proven to be quite correct. Also, the headgear brought in the era of anonymity amongst players today (compared to when you could easily see a Hull, Orr, Howe, Mahovlich, Sanderson, Clarke, Lafleur, Duguay, Langway,etc).
I wonder if that was Jim Neilson, who played for the New York Rangers (was also with the Cleveland Barons)? The only other native player from that time that I recall was of course George (Chief) Armstrong of the Leafs.
i was a big time hockey fan from that time and a huge Rangers fan..
to this day Eddie Giacomin ranks as my all time favorite sports hero (though he was a bit of a schmuck in person) closely followed by Steve Vickers...
Hadfield, Brad Park, Bruce McGregor, Pete Stemkowski, Gilles Villenueve, Dale Rolf, Billy Farbairn...
the Rangers had a native American (or maybe Canadian) player named Jim “the Chief” Nielsen..
i remember Mikita well; small, explosively quick and yes- the helmet (i believe it was a CCM helmet)..
Robin Williams was reported to have this condition.
Jim Lynch with Bill Chadwick- the big Whistle!!!
used to watch Rangers highlights every Saturday around noon on WOR!!
no face mask days....*smiles*
Severe dementia is hell on earth for all involved, the person suffering it and the person's loved ones. My grandma had it and I watched what it did to her and to my mother. So why concentrate on keeping the body healthy and prolonging the agony? Keep them confortable and let nature take its course.
When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, Stan Mikita was one of my favorite players, along with Bobby Hull.
I am not THAT old... and I remember Craig MacTavish playing sans chapeau. I believe he was the last one.
I have thought that if there was a way to make clear plastic helmets it would help the anonymity problem.
And I also wonder if helmets have done more harm than good, at least at the NHL level regarding your comment about the invinvibility level. It was fun watching MacTavish play for the Blues being the only player in pro hockey sans helmet.
Nowadays I can’t even do warmups for an old man huff and puff league without being ordered by the ref to put a helmet on.
I believe that he started the curved stick movement sometime after he started his NHL career.
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