Red Wings' '97-98 experience may inform Georgia football's recovery from accident
Elite defenseman, two others injured six days after drought-ending Stanley Cup win
A hockey team’s experience more than 750 miles away and a quarter-century ago could serve as a guide for how the Georgia football team responds to tragedy.
Retired National Hockey League forward Darren McCarty, now 50, was already a fan of the University of Georgia Bulldogs. Among the three bulldogs he once had, one was an English bulldog from the bloodline of Uga X. He watched with admiration “the smartest timeout I’ve ever seen” from Georgia coach Kirby Smart in the College Football Playoff semifinal against Ohio State. McCarty even developed affection for the state of Georgia while he was living in Clearwater, Florida.
It’s a more recent, tragic event, however, that has Bulldog Nation on McCarty’s heart now. McCarty learned the news of the car accident that took the lives of offensive lineman Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy, and injured two others, and it brought him back to a familiar place.
McCarty and the Detroit Red Wings had just won their first Stanley Cup in 42 years in 1997, with McCarty scoring the game-winning goal in the clinching Game 4 against the Philadelphia Flyers. Six days after the championship was won, after a parade and rally, and adulation felt throughout the state, the circumstances of the team’s celebration changed forever.
The Red Wings held a golf outing at a country club in suburban Detroit before the players were due to split up for the summer. Players on the team rented limousines to take them home following the outing and dinner. Russian defensemen Vladimir Konstantinov, who was 30 years old and a finalist for the NHL’s award for top defenseman, and Slava Fetisov, 39, along with team masseur and compatriot Sergei Mnatsakonov, were in a limousine driven by Richard Gnida, who was driving on a suspended license and whose blood tests later revealed the presence of marijuana in his system.
Gnida fell asleep behind the wheel of the limo, and the limousine careened into a tree on a busy roadway. Konstantinov sustained career-ending head injuries, which initially left him in a coma, and remains confined to a wheelchair. Mnatsakonov was paralyzed from the waist down in the accident. Fetisov experienced chest injuries and a bruised lung, but was able to play one final year before retiring in 1998.
In the instant the limo met the tree, the lives of the players and staff on the Red Wings, both those in and not in the vehicle, changed forever. Members of the team, including owner Mike Ilitch and captain Steve Yzerman rushed to the hospital where their injured teammates laid.
“It ruined the celebrations” that summer, McCarty said recently, “because we didn’t know whether they would live or die.”
Despite their friends’ injuries and perilous condition through much of that summer, the players still celebrated. They each still got their day with the Stanley Cup championship trophy, and there was a widely-published story at the time that some of Konstantinov’s teammates smuggled the Stanley Cup into the intensive care unit of the hospital where he remained.
McCarty estimated that the true healing didn’t begin until the following September, when the full team gathered for training camp. Hall of Fame Head Coach Scotty Bowman took great pains to change the routine of camp to allow the players time to grieve together.
“It wasn’t about hockey, it was about life,” McCarty said, “and 25 years later we’re still all in it together.”
The following season, the Red Wings were faced with reminders of Konstantinov and the accident each time they played a game, whether home or away. A specially-designed “Believe” patch adorned the team’s jerseys, while Konstantinov’s locker stall at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit remained untouched with the exception of a rock with “believe” engraved in it being added. Konstantinov served as inspiration and motivation for the team’s Cup run, and was at MCI Center in Washington, DC when, a year and three days after the accident, the Red Wings clinched their second straight Stanley Cup.
“When they showed Vladdy in the stands, it was just over at that point,” McCarty said. The Red Wings’ journey culminated in captain Yzerman taking the Stanley Cup from commissioner Gary Bettman and placing it immediately in the lap of the wheelchair-bound Konstantinov, who then led the team on its first lap around the ice celebrating the victory.
With this history, McCarty certainly understands the challenges facing the Georgia Bulldogs, coach Kirby Smart, and their fanbase.
“I think the fact that you know the end result means the healing can begin quicker,” McCarty said. “[Smart] is a leader of men” and will lead Bulldog Nation through navigating this tragedy. McCarty also warned that the healing isn’t just for the players.
“These kids are part of the community,” McCarty explained. “The fans, the players, the staff, you’re all in this together. Talk about it. Be transparent. It’s important the families of those lost feel included. Remember the survivors and their mental health.”
On behalf of Red Wings alumni and fans, McCarty also added, “We’re sending prayers, it’s okay to not be okay.”
For his part, Bernie Smilovitz, who has spent much of the last four decades as sports director at WDIV, Detroit’s NBC affiliate, also drew on the experience of covering the Red Wings to offer support and encouragement to Georgia’s fans and football program.
“Your emotions will run the gamut from great to terrible,” Smilovitz said. “Ride with your emotions, allow them to carry you. I would not be surprised if the players gather and win the national championship again.”
Devin Scillian, the main anchor for WDIV, saw the news of the Athens accident, and found it “hard to miss the similarity” between it and the Red Wings accident 25 years prior.
“It feels spectacularly unfair to have a massive communal celebration collide with such loss and heartbreak,” Scillian said. “And for many, it will be impossible to separate the two events; this marriage of elation and deflation is permanent.”
That being said, Scillian expressed optimism that the greater Bulldog Nation would rally around next year’s team, with the tragedy of the accident fueling support.
“Detroit found strength in the way the community came together and used it (and the presence of Vladimir Konstantinov) to fuel their drive for [the second Stanley Cup],” Scillian said. “My sense is that Georgia, too, will find inspiration in the abject sadness of a moment that reminds us that there are things far more important than the games we play.”
Athens-Clarke County Police released an accident report on Jan. 17 listing the failure to navigate a left curve and excessive speed as contributing factors in the accident. LeCroy was laid to rest Jan. 18 after services in Toccoa. Willock was celebrated by the Georgia football program in a private celebration of life Jan. 21 in Athens, and will be remembered in a public celebration Jan. 27 in his native New Jersey.