Sergei Gonchar Played on One Knee

During the last two rounds of the Pittsburgh Penguins run to the Stanley Cup, the one player who really stuck out in my mind for his character and high pain threshold was Penguins defenceman Sergei Gonchar. This 15- year veteran who is known for his scoring showed how much he was willing to sacrifice in order to get his name on that Cup. After missing most of the regular season due to shoulder surgery this 35 year- old suffered more bad luck when in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Washington Capitals he hurt himself in a violent knee on knee collision with Alex Ovechkin. At that time the reports from doctors was that the veteran defenceman would miss the rest of the postseason. Showing his strong will to win what has been called the hardest trophy in all of sports to win, Gonchar sat out for only two games before coming back for game seven of that series even though he was far from healthy. “Lots of guys were playing with bruises,” Gonchar who scored 14 points in the post season said of why he didn’t want to miss games. Even though he scored only one goal and four assists in the 12 games he played after getting injured, Gonchar in my opinion dispelled that old myth about how the Stanley Cup doesn’t mean as much to Europeans and that they wouldn’t sacrifice as much as Canadiens who have grown up dreaming about winning the trophy. When the playoffs were finished it was revealed that Gonchar was playing with a partially torn right medial collateral ligament. Apparently this kind of injury can keep athletes out for months but Gonchar insisted on playing and inspired his teammates by gutting out the minutes on the ice. “I told the guys they were realizing how important it is now, in the playoffs, it’s that time of the year when you have the chance to make your dream come true,” Gonchar said. “That’s why you’re playing through everything, just to get it. It’s not only me, everybody sacrificed somehow to get it.”