Back On Track: Senior Trying to Skate Again

There will be no more eight o'clock wake-ups for John Weisbrod. No more blood-pressure checks morning, noon and night. No more listening to Harvard hockey games on WHRB, because it was too painful for him to sit in the press box.

After logging 46 days in three stints that lasted until yesterday at the UHS Stillman Infirmary, Weisbrod is a free man.

But the recuperation from a bulging disk in his back has been a physically and mentally painful process for Weisbrod.

It all started in late August at the U.S. Hockey Festival, where the bruising 6'3", 215 lb. forward, Mike Vukonich, Ted Donato and Peter Ciavaglia played with hopes of earning a spot for the 1992 U.S. Olympic hockey team.

On his second shift for Team East, Weisbrod absorbed a hard blow to the head that knocked him out of the game. For the next few days, he tried to shake off debilitating headaches but couldn't. Something else was wrong.

"The doctor there found out that I had a staff infection and mono at the same time," Weisbrod said. "He said that it was the worse case he's ever seen, and he was pretty old, so that worried me. I spent August in the hospital with an I.V.I barely got out of the hospital and wasn't fully ready for the season."

"It's a pity I didn't have him for very long," Team East and St. Lawrence Coach Joe Marsh said. "We came one goal away from winning the whole thing there, and he could've helped us. He's a pro-style hockey player, who can bang around and create some space."

The sickness was a bad start to the pre-season. While other hockey players--especially Harvard's seniors--lifted weights and ran wind sprints in preparation for the rigorous winter schedule, Weisbrod was still recovering from his illness.

The "wear and tear"--as he describes it--hurt Weisbrod. He woke up the Sunday morning after the season's opening weekend against Brown and Yale with what "felt like a muscle pull" in his lower back. But the pain subsided, and he travelled to Princeton to play the following weekend.

"Towards the end of the Princeton game, I was in severe pain," Weisbrod said, "and it was hard to bend down. The next morning at Army, I couldn't get out of bed. Hockey is a game where you play through pain, but this was debilitating to the point where you couldn't function."

"You work on parts of your body in summertime," Ciavaglia said. "You try to get stronger, but when you can't do anything to prepare, injuries suddenly hit you. Having mono cut down on John. When you're hurt, you tend to want to rush back too soon."

Three days after his return to Cambridge, Weisbrod entered UHS for his first stay--it would last 15 days. He went into traction to stretch out the vertebrae in his back and loosen the inflamed disk, the lowest in his back.

The treatment seemed to work. Weisbrod came back from the Christmas break refreshed. He felt fine, "almost one-hundred percent" coming into the St. Lawrence/Clarkson weekend on January 4 and 5. He played against St. Lawrence and assisted all four Harvard goals in the Crimson's 5-4 loss.

The next night was not so fortunate. A jarring check half way through the Clarkson contest forced Weisbrod's second trip to the hospital.

"I got hit in an awkward way, a traumatic way," he said. "My body was turned one way, and my legs swung another way. It felt like someone had shot me. I couldn't wiggle my legs or toes. That moment was the high point of pain.

"I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to walk again. Hockey was the farthest thing from my mind at the time, when [Harvard Coach] Ronn [Tomassoni] and Teddy Donato and Scott Barringer carried me up to UHS. For 20 days, I needed valium and was lying here in pain. After 20 days, I was in pain but functional. We finally made the decision for surgery the night of the first Beanpot game."

That was February 4. But while surgery was set for February 15, the doctors told Weisbrod that there was only an 80 percent chance that he could undergo the percanterous disectomy, which is an arthroscopic surgery that uses a needle to drain the disc's excess fluid. Because the operation does not physically alter the back, there is usually a recovery period of only a week.

Fortunately for Weisbrod, the surgeons were able to do the operation, which they said went "extremely well."

But, because "it took a little more digging than usual," according to Weisbrod, to reach the disk sandwiched between the sacrum and vertebrae, the aggravated tissue from the surgery extended Weisbrod's recovery period to more than three weeks.

The injury has also added to his academic pressures. Because Weisbrod had to take the valium provided for his back, he could not take three first-term finals. He has studied afternoons over the past few weeks to prepare for next week's make-up examinations.

The delayed recovery rendered Weisbrod--who had hoped to return for the Clarkson/St. Lawrence weekend February 22 and 23--unable to return for his senior class's final games in Bright Center. He is also out for this weekend's ECAC semifinal and final games, but says that there is a "90-percent chance" he will play in the next round of the NCAA's next weekend, if Harvard can go that far.

"It didn't hit me until I realized that [Rensselaer] would be my last chance to play at Bright Center," Weisbrod said. "So I called [Assistant Coach] Lane [MacDonald] and said that I didn't want to listen to the game on the radio. I lay on the floor and watched the game from the feed they run to tape the game. In the last five minutes, I stood on the penalty bench and watched. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss skating at Bright again, because of all of the memories."

And there are many of those. Like the time that Harvard beat Lake Superior State to move into the NCAA semifinal round in 1988-89. Like the time earlier that season when Donato scored in sudden-death to beat Boston College in overtime, "the first time I knew we could do it," according to Weisbrod. Like the previous season, when Weisbrod was a freshman and Harvard played the 1988 U.S. Olympic Team.

"We lost 15-3, but it was a real thrill," he said. "I thought to myself, 'I'm here. I'm playing Division I hockey.' I felt like this was it."

Weisbrod said he definitely wants to continue playing hockey after the conclusion of this season, either for Minnesota or San Jose, an NHL expansion franchise. While Minnesota selected him in the fourth round of the 1987 draft (73rd pick overall), Weisbrod said he may be selected in the dispersal draft as one of 14 players that the Sharks can sign from other teams.

"San Jose has to actively pick me," he said, "so it would show there's enough serious interest. There could be the chance they're writing me off."

Above all, Weisbrod is a realist. Because he has been injured, he said he realizes "I'm losing my bargaining position." He did not have the 50-point year he had hoped to have, and must now prove himself once again to scouts in training camp this coming August.

He said that after his pro career is over, he would like either to go into sports journalism or teach and coach high school hockey.

But, for now, Weisbrod is focused on getting in shape for his pro tryouts.

"What will stick in my mind when this is all over is that this whole venture is a struggle against getting discouraged," Weisbrod said. "I know it sounds sappy, but otherwise I'd end up in depression."

"I'm not bitter or spiteful," he continued. "I don't ask 'Why does this happen to me?' I find encouragement with the fact that I'm getting my problems over with now, not when my pro career starts.