Blackhawks’ Hossa on the mend
A couple of weeks after a brutal hit by Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres in Game 3 knocked him to the ice and forced him off on a stretcher, Marian Hossa is back home in Slovakia.
But the Blackhawks forward is far from home free in his recovery from a concussion he sustained on the play.
“I’m feeling better, but still not feeling like myself,” Hossa said Thursday. “It’s going to take some time. But the good news is step by step I’m getting better.”
While Torres was sidelined by a 25-game suspension handed down by the NHL, Hossa was basically secluded in the days following the hit.
“Let’s put it this way, it’s not fun, especially the first few days,” Hossa said. “You’re in a dark room, just sitting at home.”
Hossa said he doesn’t remember much in the immediate aftermath of the hit but remembers being on the ice before Torres came at him from out of nowhere.
“I was playing the puck by our bench and I had two players around me — I saw them,” Hossa said. “When I tried to get the puck to our centerman, basically someone just came and hit me, and since then I don’t remember much.”
One thing’s for sure: Since viewing the replay of the hit, Hossa’s not getting any less angry at Torres, especially because of the way the Phoenix bad boy left the ice to deliver the blow.
“The one thing that upset me was the jump when he hit me in the head,” said Hossa, who said he may have suffered a “light” concussion when he played with Detroit. “Obviously he got 25 games. I believe he wouldn’t have gotten 25 games if he didn’t have a history of the hits he did before.
“You don’t want to see this stuff happen in hockey. I was angry, but what can you do?”
Torres got in touch with Hossa a few days afterward, but the call didn’t do much to soothe No. 81.
“It was nice that he contacted me, but I told him the one thing that upset me was that he jumped,” said Hossa, who added he, like everyone else in the United Center that night, couldn’t believe a penalty wasn’t called on the play.
“If he hadn’t jumped I maybe would’ve gotten hit but not hit in the head. and he wouldn’t have gotten 25 games.
“The phone call was pretty quick and that was it.”
But now it sounds like Hossa’s in for a long recovery — a long, tedious one.
“I’m slowly going for walks, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “I can move around now and things bother me less than they did before.
“It’s small steps.”
As for when he might make the big leap of returning to the ice with his teammates? Hossa’s optimistic.
“It’s a long time until training camp and I have a long time to recover,” he said. “I believe I’ll be ready.”
mspellman@dailyherald.com