Near death experience

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006 | 7:15 a.m.

As the team's goalie and later assistant general manager and head coach, Clint Malarchuk was probably the most popular member of the old Las Vegas Thunder.

He also was the most interesting of the original Thunder. He had neckties with pigs on them, was paid in horses instead of dollars at contract time and owned and operated an emu farm.

That's what most local hockey fans remember about him.

Outside of Las Vegas, he is most remembered as the National Hockey League goalie who nearly bled to death on the ice.

During a 1989 game against the St. Louis Blues, Malarchuk was between the pipes for the Buffalo Sabres when Blues right winger Steve Tuttle and Sabres defenseman Uwe Krupp collided near his goal crease.

Tuttle's leg kicked into the air and his skate slashed Malarchuk's jugular vein.

It was one of the most gruesome injuries ever witnessed at a sporting event. Even the TV cameras turned away as a giant pool of blood formed on the ice after Malarchuk flung off his mask and collapsed. Several of his teammates vomited on the ice.

"Am I going to live?" Malarchuk asked the Buffalo trainers.

More than 300 stitches were required to close the wound in Malarchuk's neck. Had Tuttle's skate struck him 1/8 of an inch higher on his jugular, doctors estimate Malarchuk would have died within two minutes.

Malarchuk, who still lives on a ranch near Gardnerville and is in his first year as Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender coach, said he had heard persons who sever their jugular vein usually die within three minutes.

"I thought I've got a lot of repenting to do in three minutes," he said.

After Malarchuk's accident, the NHL mandated that goalies masks be fitted with a protective throat flaps.