http://www.daily.umn.edu/~online/daily/11101995/sports/puck10/=20
 
> Hockey player a Pioneer on the comeback trail
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> Jeff Sherry - Staff Reporter
>                                                            =20
> For a few weeks in January, the Denver hockey team had a
> unique way of knowing when its practices were over.
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> Whenever forward Brent Cary took the ice, it was time for his
> teammates to hit the showers. Cary, who was trying to come back
> after fracturing a vertebrae in his neck about three months earlier,
> needed the rink to himself for his workouts.
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> "The guys on the team loved me because I had to kick them off to be
> on the ice by myself," said Cary, now a senior. "So they'd always
> ask me, 'Brent, when are you coming on?'"
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> A lot has changed for Cary since then. He returned to play in seven
> games last season but ended his year in February to give himself
> more time to recuperate. Cary continued to work and completed his
> comeback this season by establishing himself as a member of the
> Pioneers' top-scoring line on offense.
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> But the last 10 months provide only a glimpse of adversity Cary has
> had to endure. Since he was 17-years-old, Cary has had to overcome
> four potential career-ending injuries and the loss of his father to
> cancer. In that time, his hockey career has changed from promising
> to injury-prone to inspirational.
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> "Knowing what he's gone through and the little amount he's played in
> the last few years, I think he's made tremendous progress," Denver
> coach George Gwozdecky said. "If there's one player on this team
> that everyone is pulling for, it's Brent."
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> When Cary came to Denver in 1991, he quickly became one of the
> WCHA's best new players. He teamed up with freshmen Angelo Ricci and
> Jason Elders to form one of the league's top offensive threats.
> Their line became known as the "REC-ing Crew" (Ricci, Elders, Cary),
> and Cary shared team freshman of the year honors with Elders.
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> At that point, Cary had his sights set on a professional hockey
> career. But as a sophomore, a string of injuries began that resulted
> in Cary playing only 28 games during the next three years.
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> In November 1992, he tore the meial collateral ligament in his right
> knee and had to sit out the season with a medical-redshirt to
> preserve the year of eligibility.
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> He came back. The following year he separated his shoulder in
> preseason practice. He came back again. Later that season he tore
> the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and needed more
> surgery.
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> But his neck injury on Oct. 13, 1994 was by far the most serious.
> The 5-foot-7, 165-pound junior collided with 200-pound teammate John
> McLean in a practice drill. Neither player saw the other one coming.
> Cary said they hit each other at center ice and he ended up at the
> blue line with a broken neck.
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> The accident changed Cary's outlook on life.
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> "I've kind of re-evaluated things and realized that hockey is really
> not that important," Cary said. "Walking is important. Talking is
> important. Being able to feel your hands is important. I laid there
> on the ice, and for a couple minutes I couldn't feel my arms or my
> legs. That's a scary thing. Just in a split second everything can be
> taken away from you.
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> "I don't live life one day at a time or a week at a time anymore. I
> live it by what I'm doing now. I guess I live it a minute at a time
> or a second at a time."
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> The recovery process was difficult. Cary had to wear a chin-support
> collar around his neck for eight weeks. He said he had trouble
> sleeping and couldn't take it off, drive or work out during that
> time.
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> But he still wanted to come back and play hockey. About 10 weeks
> after the accident, Cary skated for the first time. About a month
> later, he was playing for the Pioneers again.
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> Cary said his personality and his past wouldn't allow himself to
> quit.
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> "I've been through a lot of stuff," Cary said. "My father died of
> cancer when I was 17. I saw what he had to go through, and I saw
> that he never quit -- until it was time to quit. When he died was
> when he said, 'Enough is enough.'
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> "And I remember that. I take it to heart that he never quit from
> that serious of an injury -- until it was time to quit."
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> Cary decided that when his college eligibility is up at the end of
> this season, it will be time to quit his hockey career.
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> "God's telling me now that I'm going to have arthritis in four years
> with all these injuries, and that's my time to quit," Cary said.
> "I'm not going to quit until I'm forced out of the game. If you want
> to use that in a poker sense: When you're broke, you're broke -- you
> can't play anymore."
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> Cary said he still isn't 100 percent recovered from his injuries,
> but he feels better every time he plays. It showed last weekend. In
> the Pioneers' two games against Northern Michigan, Cary scored two
> goals and assisted on two others. His performance earned him a
> nomination for WCHA offensive player of the week honors.
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> The hockey accolades will probably keep coming. But while Cary still
> loves the sport, he said being a role model is now his top priority.
> He won the 1994 Bob Martin Community Service Award for outstanding
> work within the community, and he plans on making even more time for
> children.
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> "I think that's what I want to be remembered for around here," Cary
> said. "If someone comes up to me and says, 'You're a great
> inspiration for my kid,' or, 'You're great for the DU community,' I
> think that's more important than someone coming up to me and telling
> me I'm a great hockey player."
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> =A9The Minnesota Daily
 
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