So three weeks ago at MTS Centre, when a marginal hit from Rockford defenceman Jerramie Domish caused severe damage to the anterior cruciate ligament in Balej’s right knee, there was initial talk that his season might be lost and that surgery was imminent.
“I cannot take another season off. That would kill me,” Balej said after finishing a 94-minute workout on Blue Cross Arena ice here on Monday.
“I think it’s 90 per cent mental. If you want to get better, you will. If you want to be thinking about the bad things and the wrong things that can happen, it’s going to go badly. I learned that and I try to use that to my advantage here.”
A few days after his knee injury, despite grim reports, Balej returned to light workouts. He progressed to wearing a brace and skating with the team’s Focus Fitness consultants and then to sessions with team doctors about the mechanics of his damaged ACL.
And now knowing that the damaged ligament cannot be made any worse, Balej joined his teammates on Sunday and appeared on the ice on Monday. Good news for Jozef Balej. To be quite honest, a lot of people write off Balej as both an NHLer and more recently as a hockey player because of this injury. Balej has already sustained season-ending injuries two years ago and had a surgery been performed on his ACL it most likely would’ve killed his career.
Balej, who signed on to play in Fribourg of the Swiss League last year, came back to the Vancouver Canucks this season and looked poise to make the team before being cut in the final week of training camp. However, the injury came suddenly and his career was looking as bleak as ever. After being drafted by Montreal back in 2000 in the third round, he had a load of potential but that potential has never materialized. He bounced around from Montreal to New York before coming to the Canucks for Fedor Fedorov.
It’ll be a great story if Balej can overcome this recent hurdle and somehow find a way to play in the NHL again.
