Three times over the past week, Sidney Crosby has laced up his RBKs and returned to the ice, embarking down the long road back to the Pittsburgh Penguins line-up.
Making it to the end of that road can be a bit of a process. Time heals, but time can be frustrating too, given that returning from injuries seems to take an ungodly amount of it.
The process of coming back from a concussion is comparable in time to that of a physical injury -- once you're cleared to skate -- but that's where the similarities end.
With something such as the torn MCL, you do everything you can to stay in shape while the injury heals. You can lift weights, do short lunges with elastics around your feet, and even start to push the MCL as it starts to get better by balancing on a bosu ball. You have to keep the muscle around injuries strong, so you have to stay active. Also, you get to be around the guys and get called a "sissy," which is always a blast.
The first time you get the chance to wheel around the rink with your healing knee, you do a lot of processing and evaluating. How does it feel when I turn to the right, how does it feel when I stop to the left -- you're not so much working yourself back into game shape as you are defining your parameters.
Each day as you move forward, you feel those parameters expand, and you're able to put together some semblance of a timetable for your return. If turning is the tough part, then at least you can start to gain some cardio by skating hard in straight lines. It's always deflating when you notice how quickly your cardio got tossed out the window. Even a week off the ice is easily noticeable the next time you skate, thanks in large part to the wheezing and the realization that somebody set fire to your lungs.
It's one of the hockey players' mantras: Only playing games can get you in game shape. There's just something about the particular stops, starts, hustling, and battling that can't be duplicated with a bag skate. Because of that reality, it's time for coach to work you back into the line-up with low minutes those first couple games, and build from there (assuming you usually get more than a few minutes, of course).
In the case of concussions, ala Sidney Crosby, the prep for return has been significantly more difficult.
As most of us know at this point, you basically do nothing while letting a concussion run its course.
And by "basically," I mean that you actually do nothing. It's the most frustrating part of the injury.
Can you imagine being a competitor like Sidney Crosby and not even being able touch a weight, go for a spin on the bike, or have a decent sweat for as long as it's been? He must be going mental. You don't even get to be around the team to get called a sissy. When he finally got the green light to start making his return, you can imagine how easy it would've been to go too hard too early, and set himself back a few days. But fear is a pretty solid governor on your engine.
It's an uneasy situation once you get out on the ice and handle a puck — I know I'm supposed to, but how do I play at half speed?
Can I skate hard for a second? Can I reach for that pass? Have I already done too much?
The self-monitoring is scary, because you expect at any second to start feeling nauseous, or to be overcome with a headache. It sounds basic, but all you can do is chip away and do a little more each day, and pray that your tangled knot of brain wires have straightened themselves out.
As Crosby builds towards being able to skate (and eventually, being able to take a hit again), his mood will likely improve. He'll get his mojo back. But for a while, it's like emerging from some deep dark cave, like a bear waking up from hibernating and realizing it might be time to get something to eat.
He won't be alone in wincing the first time he takes a hard hit — the rest of us who've followed his predicament will too, for one simple reason: nobody knows. Nobody knows if he's better. There's no scab that falls off and proves the healing. You just pick an arbitrary day and say "well, I think I'm ready to play again."
You just hope you guess right.
Nearly every player in hockey has journeyed down the slow road back to the line-up, but that doesn't make it any more fun. Time heals, they say, but sometimes it just doesn't seem to move fast enough.