Bergeron vows he'll be back

Bruins center is feeling better

January 10, 2009|Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff

During the dark 10-day stretch following his Dec. 20 concussion, when he was recovering in his downtown home and experiencing some of the symptoms that plagued him a year earlier, Patrice Bergeron's psyche was as battered as his body.

It was just prior to the collision that finally, more than a year after the Grade 3 concussion that nearly ended his career, Bergeron was starting to feel like the old No. 37. He was showing off his hockey sense. He was making plays. Bergeron was playing his game - that elusive blend of in-your-face toughness with a skilled touch of elegance.

"He had more jump," said Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli. "The game before, he had a little more jump, too. He was making plays. He was making plays with his stick. Not just on the power play. He was making plays in traffic. He looked like he was free-flowing. Certainly that game, outside of some of his performances in training camp, was his best game."

But there he was on the TD Banknorth Garden ice, laid out with his second commotion cerebrale, the cause of a shoulder-to-cheek collision with Carolina defenseman Dennis Seidenberg in the very game in which he felt at his best.

"I was more frustrated and sad, I guess, to have to go through this all over again," Ber geron said yesterday in his first public appearance since his second concussion. "There was a little fear from what happened last year. Right away when the hit happened, it was, 'Geez, same thing all over again.' "

But after that initial week and a half, when the headaches, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue began to wane, Bergeron understood that his latest concussion hardly resembled the first. Last time, Bergeron was knocked unconscious. He was sensitive to light and hardly able to walk. He had to wear a neck brace.

This time, his nose wasn't broken. The hit on the jaw, explained Robert Cantu, the neurologist who consulted with him last season, would likely have caused a concussion to anyone. In fact, Cantu explained that Bergeron would have probably suffered a concussion even if he had been free of head injuries prior to the Seidenberg collision.

"I was starting to feel a lot better about my game," Bergeron said. "Then that hit happened. To go down again with a concussion is really frustrating. But it was the first week I was thinking about that. I was down and a little negative. Now that I've improved, I'm not thinking about that. I'm looking forward."

Bergeron, who is free of headaches, sees a return this season, although neither he nor the Bruins have established a timetable. So far, Bergeron (4-14 -18, 57 percent faceoff winning percentage, 18:02 average ice time) has missed nine games because of this concussion.