Dangerous hit derailed Mills’ season

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This article was published 26/05/2011 (5324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Much like two of his favourite NHL players — Ryan Kesler and Ryan Getzlaf — Brandon bantam Jace Mills prefers to play hockey physically.

"I hit, I hit, I like hitting," said a smiling Mills, who turned 14 this week.

"I wasn’t a hitter my first year of peewee, and then my second year, I got used to it. I remember, my friend … made a big hit and I was, like, ‘I want to make a big hit. I want to do that.’ I went and hit a kid and it felt good when I put him to the ice. I’ve been doing it since then."

Now going into his second year of bantam — and fourth season of bodychecking — Mills was on the receiving end of a bone-crunching hit this winter that left him with a concussion and derailed his season with Brandon’s minor bantam team, the A&W Wheat Kings.

Even longtime hockey parents at the game said they hadn’t previously witnessed such a severe check. It sent Mills head-first into the boards, said his mother Kim, who watched frantically from the sidelines during that mid-February game in Winnipeg.

"It was awful," she said. "We all thought there was no way Jace was going to get up. We thought, a broken neck maybe, or a stretcher (would be needed) or something. It was just a general gasp.

"It was one of those hits that no one wants to see happen. It was just an unfortunate timing with the space between (Jace and) the boards and the speed of the boy that was throwing the hit."

The Winnipeg Warriors’ player who hit Mills received a game misconduct and an additional one-game suspension, Kim Mills said. "He had just returned from serving a suspension."

As much as Jace likes to throw checks, his parents say he does so cleanly.

"Jace hits a lot, but he’s never been called for a hit from behind," said his father Dave. "You can be physical and aggressive and know when to stop."

Jace partly credits his football background for his knowledge of how to make a clean check on the ice.

"It’s kind of simple," he said. "I think I learned from football, like, the proper contact. You don’t rock someone from behind. You’ve got to go right at them. If it’s a hit from behind, I don’t like to be mean. Your team wouldn’t like that, even, if you hit a kid from behind and got kicked out of the game."

Jace, at 5-foot-7 and 170 pounds, is a power forward who also plays defence, as he was during the game in which he was injured.

"It was a D-to-D pass in the neutral zone and the puck was ahead of me, so I tried to go get it and then I got hit," he said.

"When I hit the ground, it went all fuzzy sort of and it went black for a second. But I can’t remember any pain. I got up and my coach was telling me to lay down, because he thought something was really wrong."

Jace, however, was able to leave the ice with minimal assistance and he stayed on the bench and in the game. But, on his next shift, he collided with a teammate and slammed into a goalpost.

"I ran into the post, and then I just skated off and sat in the dressing room until the end of the game," he said. "I just felt terrible. I didn’t get sick, but I felt sick, for sure. I just wanted to go to sleep, pretty much, because my head was pounding."

Jace’s doctor is the father of one of his teammates with the Bantam A Wheat Kings, so he was at the game and examined Jace in the dressing room and instructed him not to return to action that weekend. They scheduled a doctor’s appoint-ment for Monday, two days after the hit.

"At that time, (the doctor) said, ‘Don’t prepare to play or don’t plan to play for a while, because you’re not going to,’" Kim said. "So that’s what started my research, because Jace kept saying, ‘My headache is gone. I feel good enough to play.’ But it was quite the opposite."

Jace was not only off the ice, but he experienced concussion symptoms at home and in school.

"When I was reading, the words would sort of not come together," said the Grade 8 student. "Math was the worst because you’re trying to focus and figure out the questions, but you can’t. And then you get headaches because, I guess you could say, you’re thinking too hard."

His parents were thinking, too, wondering what it would take for their son to regain his health. Kim began to research concussions and discovered that Jace’s participation in math class might have been counter-productive to his recovery.

"It was, absolutely," she said in hindsight. "I was adamant that he had to go to school. You think you’re a good parent and doing the right thing by saying, ‘Go to school. You can’t miss school. Come on.’ I shouldn’t have done that.

"But his school was good about it. We had to phone and say, ‘He’s got a headache, he’s got a concussion and there’s no way he can be active in phys ed.’ The school was understanding. But they hadn’t heard, either, that math was a factor (triggering concussion stress). Who knows? You’ve got to try to find that balance between school and sports and manage that."

At home, too, concussion symptoms caused discomfort for Jace.

"Even video games and TV, that kind of stuff early on was difficult," Kim said. "Sitting in a black room was the best (remedy) for the early onset."

At the same time, Jace was keen to return to the ice. After all, he’s an active kid whose hobbies include snowboarding, skateboarding, biking and multiple school sports.

He attempted a hockey comeback when the local Directors Cup team began practising for the provincial development tournament for 1997-born players. He had been symptom-free for two weeks, but a recurrence of his headaches forced Jace to miss two big events that wrapped up the Wheat Kings’ season — the Tournament of Champions in Brandon and the provincial championship in The Pas.

"It sucked," he said succinctly.

Eventually, he was able to practise and play with the Directors Cup team in late March to end a trying season on a positive note.

"With those good coaches, I learned more in those six weeks than I probably did in my whole season," Jace said. "And I improved a lot over that time, too."

As he returned to the ice, there were a few anxious moments for his parents.

"The first game back was hard to watch, just every hit," Kim said. "But by the second game, we were on stride. It was like it had never happened. He had forgotten about it."

 

Hockey mom urges concussion awareness

Kim Mills hopes Brandon can be a provincial catalyst in educating families about the impact of concussions in sports.

Her two sons, Jace and Connor, play football and Jace is also competitive hockey player who missed the latter part of his Bantam A season because of concussion symptoms. The Mills family has first-hand experience about one of the hottest issues in hockey. Mills brought the issue to Hockey Brandon’s annual general meeting in April and the association has agreed to study it further in consultation with the membership.

"I asked that they spend some time on forming a strategy for concussion management, or concussions (in general), and said it would be great if they were leaders within Manitoba on putting together a plan that worked," she said.

"I just think that awareness is so important. There’s so many myths associated with concussions. I think we need to do what we can to protect the kids and educate the parents and the kids, too. Like, it’s OK (for players) to say, ‘I’ve got to sit out,’ and not be considered a wimp."

Hockey Brandon is polling its members for input on a gameplan to tackle and manage concussions.

"We’ve taken a proactive approach to offer a non-contact division for peewee-aged and older children who don’t want to play (contact hockey)," said Hockey Brandon third vice-president Don Wilson. "A lot of larger centres are going to that, with very good success and their numbers are going up and kids are staying involved in the sport. We’ve sent out an email to all families to see if that is something they’d at all be interested in, just to get a gauge on interest."

ON TAP: Brandon will host an open concussion symposium June 8 at the Victoria Inn at 7 p.m.

» jmacneil@brandonsun.com