How to Properly Deal with a Potential Tragedy

     By now everyone is well aware about the incident involving Stars center Rich Peverly last night at the AAC. As scary as it was, everyone from the officials to the broadcast teams to the league office in Toronto handled it as calmly as possible, with as little speculation as possible. This should be the blueprint for how off-playing field events are dealt with in sports.

     For those who are not in the know, here's some background and a recap of what happened. Peverly, a 31-year-old center who was sent to Dallas by Boston in the Tyler Seguin trade last year, was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrilation during training camp and missed the first month of the season after surgery for the issue. He again missed a game last week (coincidently a road game at Columbus) due to a flare-up of symptoms while his medication was being adjusted.

     Fast forward to last night. After ending a shift, he came off the ice and some time after collapsed, leading teams on both sides to frantically try to get the attention of the linesman to stop the game. Here's where the professionalism of everyone involved took over.

     As play was whistled dead, he was rushed into the tunnel by the coaching staff, the Stars in-arena medical team began working on him. At that point is was unknown what was going on and to whom, and the Dallas broadcast team of Ralph Strangis and Darryl Reaugh did not try to speculate until they knew for sure (Though Reaugh correctly assumed it was Peverly after seeing he was the only one not milling about around the bench). For most of this time they stayed quiet, with cameras panning around getting reaction shots of players and fans, who should also be commended for understanding the gravity of the situation and keeping just as silent as Strangis and Reaugh. In all my years of being a Stars fan, I've never once heard dead air for that long on the radio.

     Once it was learned that Peverly was conscious and in stable condition, the focus then shifted to whether or not the NHL would choose to continue the game. It was quite obvious from comments after the game by Dallas coach Lindy Ruff and Columbus Blue Jackets President of Hockey Ops John Davidson that the only option was to postpone it rather than make two teams of visibly shaken players finish.

     This could have been handled much differently and would have led to the story this morning being either the first in-game death in the NHL since Bill Masterson or how someone screwed up or how fans in Dallas are insensitive. Instead, this became a template for how incidents like this ought to be handled, and stories this morning focused on Rich Peverly and his condition, as they very well should.