NHL's Goriest Scene: Clint Malarchuk

How can we not go through Hallowe'en mentioning gore? How can we not mention gore and bring up the goriest incident the NHL has ever experienced?

For those feint of heart, I'd skip this altogether. Otherwise, let us recount one of the scariest incidents in the league's history, just to spook the hell out of you.

March 22, 1989 - Clint Malarchuk nearly bled to death on the ice after taking a skate blade to the throat. As defender Uwe Krupp and Blackhawks forward Steve Tuttle drove towards the net, Tuttle feel and somehow his skate ended up hitting Malarchuk in the worst spot possible.

I was 10 years old at the time, and remember seeing the incident on TV. It still remains one of my most vivid memories from that period in my life, and my first real experience with anything close to death (other than the deer my father shot on his hunting trips). I can't imagine being one of his teammates on the ice, feeling helpless at Malarchuk continued to lose blood at an alarming rate.

"I did think I was done," said Malarchuk 13 years later, "Somewhere I'd heard that if you cut your jugular vein you've got a matter of minutes, like three minutes. I was going through the minutes preparing to die. I thought I had just three minutes to live and I've got a lot of repenting to do in three minutes."

The sight was so grizzly that 2 spectators suffered heart attacks and 3 of Malarchuk's teammates vomited while still on the ice.

It was estimated that if the skate hit 1/8 inch higher on Malarchuk's jugular, he would have been dead within 2 minutes. In the dressing room and on his way to the hospital, doctors spent 90 minutes and used over 300 stitches to close the wound.

Thankfully, there is a happy ending to this story. Malarchuk recovered from this incident (a week later, he was on the ice!) and played hockey for many more years. People woke up to the fact that goalies were at risk for injuries around the neck area, and now goalies wear neck guards.

Here is the visual recount of the incident. Extreme blood warning.