It was a strange thing when it happened. Actually, it was a watershed moment in more ways than one only we didn’t know the entire story at the time. For some (like me) it was one of those peculiar moments in sports that makes one take notice of something extraordinary. It even changes the way we look at the games.
Yes, that was the day Keith Primeau stopped being just a mere hockey player and became something beyond that. Perhaps in some ridiculous sense he became something like a warrior-poet or some such non-sense.
Either way, he wasn’t exactly some dude skating around and whacking at a puck despite the fact that he was doing something really stupid like fighting.
Actually, Primeau was fighting in a playoff hockey game just a couple days after he had spent the night in the hospital after being knocked out cold during a game in Pittsburgh. In order to get Primeau off the ice medics had to gingerly tip-toe out there with a stretcher, strap him down and mince back off lest they slip and suffer the same fate.
I remember it like it was yesterday, though it was just about nine years ago. I remember it so vividly because it was one of those crazy little nuanced moments that people collect and talk about to others who might also have a similar collection.