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(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Around the city they'll care, and that's why
it's special to play here.
These fans, they care about the game, they care about you.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: It's a special place to play.
(♪♪♪)
(door shuts)
CONNOR: You know, if it was probably up to my mom,
we would have been a skating family, but I think she had
two boys and my dad loved hockey as well, so I think we
were going to win that battle.
Obviously we became a bit of a hockey family and loved
every minute of it.
tournaments in Europe, you know, events in China,
you know, in Russia and places I would normally never get to go,
and you see hockey is really been everything to me.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: I don't like losing.
Nobody does.
BRIAN: The drive, that's just who he is.
He's been that way since he was, he would have been what,
3-4, and we'd, you know, he refused to let us help him get
dressed when he was going to play hockey, he had to carry
his bag everywhere, whereas you know, most places,
you know, when you go to the rink when the kids are
four years old, the mom or the dad are carrying the bags in,
but not Connor, the bag was bigger than he was.
He insisted on getting himself dressed.
He's, you know, Kelly uses the word "determined"
all the time.
KELLY: Well he is.
He's intense.
And he's competitive.
I think that's the biggest word.
MAN: Can I get your name and where you go.
YOUNG CONNOR: Um, Connor McDavid.
Go to Premier Elite Athletics Collegiate.
Yup.
CONNOR: Speed, I think, that's the main thing.
My game is all about speed.
ANNOUNCER: Right wing point.
Fumbled the puck, lost it on out centre to McDavid.
He's trying to speed off.
Just blows right by Spencer.
Coming in on goal.
Here's McDavid with a back hand.
(cheering)
MAN: He gets outside or he gets a step on you, man,
the kid's speed.
I've never seen anything like that.
ANNOUNCER: Connor McDavid's speeds up.
Gotta go through an intercept.
Get it towards the goal, gets around, goes before
and scores!
Sweet sassy molassey.
Conor McDavid does it again.
JEFF: Bobby Orr says it to me all the time, like Connor goes
too hard to the net, but I think it's just the way that
he plays, and he sees openings and he goes for it,
and that's what makes him so great.
ANNOUNCER: Left on the take.
Trying to split, back hand shot,
He scores!
GARY: Bobby Orr's telling me that this player's going to
be, and remember, Bobby Orr's word's to me is,
"Everybody said I was the greatest skater to ever play."
He said, "This kid's going to be the best skater to ever play,"
and Connor McDavid was 15 years old when Bobby Orr
said this.
(♪♪♪)
(puck bouncing)
BOB: Yeah, you know, just because of his speed,
how he utilizes his edges as he drives to the net.
He's just that much quicker than anyone else.
That's what Connor McDavid is.
TRACY: What I love about Connor is it's all about power.
It's all about speed and getting there.
How you look doesn't matter.
It's the intensity and the focus.
(whistle blows)
A huge event.
Jack Eichel, the time to beat.
13.582.
Here comes the two-time defending champ,
Connor McDavid.
(cheering)
JEFF: The ice hasn't gotten any bigger over the years,
but he skates exceptionally fast, and hard to tell a player
like Connor McDavid that, to slow down, you know.
ANNOUNCER: McDavid.
McDavid trying to split the defense.
McDavid.
What a play.
What a goal.
0-5, Connor McDavid, welcome back.
The Oilers with a 2-1 lead.
ZACK: He can skate so well, he can handle the puck so well.
He does everything at such an elite level but then brings
that speed element that, maybe we haven't seen a player
like that in the game in maybe forever.
ANNOUNCER: McDavid sinks a shot.
Oh, what a goal.
(bull horn)
Connor McDavid.
DAVE: Some of the things he does is, and you never see
players do that before.
And it's not just skating speed, it's skating with
the puck, which is a whole other dimension.
There's a lot of fast skaters in the league, but the people
that skate that fast with the puck is an incredible ability.
ANNOUNCER: (indistinct)
McDavid, he scores.
ANNOUNCER: McDavid cutting (indistinct)
His backhand, scores.
ANNOUNCER: Breaking away is Connor McDavid barreling down
the right hand side, to the net, (indistinct)
Scores.
BOB: It just amazes you.
I love watching Connor live.
But I don't like watching him live unless I have a TV,
because you just go watch it live and you go what did he
just do?
ANNOUNCER: Scores!
ANNOUNCER: Conor McDavid, with a career high, 31st goal
of the season.
ANNOUNCER: McDavid to the net.
Great job, score.
ANNOUNCER: McDavid.
(audience cheering)
ANNOUNCER: Scores.
ANNOUNCER: I don't know the words for Conor McDavid.
MIKE: A lot of guys have been fast in the past and have been
really good players, but to have a guy that can stick
handle the puck as many times as he can in a short period
of time while going fast is pretty special.
(♪♪♪)
(bull horn)
KEN: Yeah, I mean obviously watch him.
That's how he plays.
I mean, he plays the game.
That's one of his gifts.
He's got, he's got incredible speed, incredible lateral
movement in combination with incredible hockey sense.
(♪♪♪)
KEN: I mean, he plays the game hard.
He plays the game fast.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: April 6 was a bit of a different day in general.
I mean it's the end of the season.
You know, and we're out of the playoffs, and you know,
not a lot of good stuff going on.
But at the end of the day you still got to play an NHL game.
That's something I try to take pride in.
It's not much to hang your hat on at the end of the year
when you're out of the playoffs, but yeah, you just
don't mail it in, and you know, you play as hard
as you can, and I think we were doing that.
(♪♪♪)
MARK: You know, I'm not going to come in here and just hand
the Calgary Flames a freebie, so it was a high intense game.
ANNOUNCER: Here comes McDavid straight down the middle,
back hander, Smith down.
ANNOUNCER: All the angles.
Here comes McDavid, McDavid (indistinct)
And the crashes into the Flames' net.
CONNOR: Right on the post, square, and just felt
the pain right away.
I thought I broke my leg into a couple pieces.
GARY: You know, our fear for Connor throughout his career
so far is he's going too fast.
(♪♪♪)
MARK: Yeah, it bothered me.
A lot of speed.
Obviously, he's the fastest player in the game.
He got a step to the outside on me.
Basically, it was I think a combination of my stick and
the arm taking out his legs.
He's so fast that he was going in real quick and it happened
so fast, and then the result.
I saw him down and I knew he was hurt right away.
A hockey play trying to break up a guy from getting a
scoring chance and when I saw the result, I knew he was
hurt right away.
You could tell by the look on his face, so there was
immediate concern, and listen, we're all on the ice together
at the end of the day, and we're entertaining the fans,
and you don't want to see anyone go down, especially,
you know, a guy who brings so much to the game,
so it was concerning.
ZACK: Game play.
Game mode.
Didn't look dirty by any means, it looked like a guy
that was beat and did everything to try and get
the puck from him to stop him from scoring a goal.
MARK: Kassium's been around a while,
all of us understand when it's a dirty play
and you're trying to hurt a guy and when it's just a
hockey play, and I think, you know, we all were in that
moment sort of more concerned with the injury and the guy
laying on the ice than, you know, all that other stuff.
ZACK: Flew in pretty hard with a lot of force into the net,
and the net comes off the ice, which, if anyone plays hockey,
you realize those pegs are in their pretty good.
He's not getting up right away, so then you're like,
oh no, something's wrong, cause he's a tough kid and he gets
up from a lot of things, he takes a lot of abuse
out there, so went right over obviously and got close to him
and asked him, "Hey.
What's going on?
He whispered to me, "I think it's broke."
MIKE: I could just see the look on his face that something just
wasn't right.
CONNOR: I was having flashbacks to Stamcos'
injury, and I know Stammer really well.
ANNOUNCER: They tangled up, oh and they're jammed up, and
he's holding on to his shin, and then he's in a
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: You know, watching him go through something like
that, you know, it was pretty scary, and thinking that I was
gonna, and this is all in a split second, where lots go
through your mind in a split second, but.
MARK: Steven Stamkos texts me and the text was,
"Did he break it?"
He thought he fractured his tibia, especially when he was
on the ice - just his reaction, he's grabbing his
leg, and I'm like, "Wow, this is going to be long."
MARK: Obviously, you know, top player in our game and a clean
player and a guy who I respect on the other team, you know,
we compete hard against each other where you play with
that respect, and for that to happen.
I said to him right after, "If I could do it all over
again, you'd like to take it back."
BOB: Yeah, I watched
his lips and you know, I just had a lump in my throat.
We hadn't had a great end to the season.
I'm just going "it can't get worse," but looks like
it could be.
TD: I asked him to move his knee.
He could move it slightly, so I wasn't concerned that it
was dislocated.
So then I said "Okay Connor," I said "You know,
we have a couple options here. "
I said, "I'd like to get you up.
If you don't think you can get up, then I'll call out
the gurney and we'll take you off that way," and he
looked at me and he says, "No no no, it's painful,
but I think I can get up. "
ANNOUNCER: And they're going to try to get him up
onto his feet here.
leg was just gonna give away.
(applause)
ANNOUNCER: Getting helped on the ice, and I - I mean, just
the initial thoughts on seeing how hard he went into that
post and how long he stayed down, I'd be surprised if he's
able to come back.
ZACK: Such a big part of the Edmonton Oilers and then for
the league, he brings so much to the game of hockey that
I think the whole league was kind of in shock.
(applause)
ANNOUNCER: This is a guy that doesn't stay down too often,
doesn't miss games unless he absolutely has to.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: I held it together until we got through the
tunnel, and I was a mess.
I think it probably took us ten minutes just to get back
to the room.
TD: Said "Stop, just give me a second," and a lot
of things are going on I'm sure, in his mind, I'm sure
he's thinking about the pain that he's going through.
What's going to happen to the short term career,
what's happening to his long term career?
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: They did a great job just trying to calm me down
and make me feel better, but obviously I was a bit
of a mess.
(♪♪♪)
LAUREN: It was, it was really hard when he called me.
His immediate reaction was,
"Okay. I broke my leg".
So it was definitely emotional.
(♪♪♪)
BRIAN: He was very upset.
He was in a lot of pain, which as a parent it's kind of
hard to hear when your child's in pain.
KELLY: It was awful.
You know, when your kids are sick or hurt or upset or
anything, I mean for me that is the worst thing
in the world.
You know?
Doesn't matter how old they are.
CONNOR: I remember laying down the x-ray room, they take the
pictures, and then you know, the doc looks at the pictures,
"Nope, nothing's broken. "
I'm like "Well, I guess that's a good thing,"
but you know, maybe in hindsight it would have
been better if it was broken.
DR. NAIDU: He's in a lot of pain number one, and then once
you get down and then you're examined by the docs and the
head therapist, then you start thinking
"Okay, what am I going to do?
My knee's swollen, I can't put weight on it.
It's sore," and that whole plan you had into the
offseason to get ready for the next season is derailed.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Fairly positive right now.
I'm going to go for an MRI in a little bit here and
clear up more.
CONNOR: I've never had like a lower body injury before, so
this is something new for me, but like I said, we still
don't know too much.
But that result, is there any way to get it
out of your game.
You know what, they pay me one hundred million
dollars to play my game.
Part of my game is beating guys wide and going to the
net, so Daryl's going to have to, I'll have to give my money
back if I stop doing that, so I'm not doing that, so.
(interviewers laugh)
CONNOR: And you know, I get in the MRI machine, they had
said "Grade 2 strain" of my PCL.
And it looks pretty good.
(♪♪♪)
DR NAIDU: You know, I have been through elite athletes
in hockey and in other sports at this type of injury, and there
are certain things that I saw on the exam and on the MRI
that were very good news.
Obviously, there are things that were bad news as well.
MARK: There was so much swelling initially.
damage, so he was referred to a couple other specialists
for their opinion.
JEFF: You immediately go get a second opinion or a third
opinion or whatever you need, so I talked to Bob Nicholson
and we set up a second opinion.
BRIAN: "Hey dad, just want you to let you know I'm
going for a second opinion on Colorado Springs."
We were both thinking "Okay, well this is just sort of
reaffirming what we already knew, everything's fine. "
(wheels screaching)
CONNOR: The doctor had told me that it was actually
a full PCL tear, tears both sides of my meniscus, torn the
popliteus right off the bone, so I mean at that point that
was enough to have a full reconstruction of the knee,
full reconstruction of the PCL and the popliteus which would
have been over a year recovery and we don't know how it
would have really recovered.
BRIAN: And basically he said that the doctor told him that
if he didn't have surgery like now, he needed surgery,
there was no question of that, and by the way the sooner
the better, and like the next few days would be good.
Your career is only so long, you never know how long
it's going to be.
And the opportunities to win the Stanley Cup are few and
far between, so missing an entire year is, you know,
he's, not only is this his personal goal, but he's
letting his team mates down too, and that's like,
he's the leader.
He's, again, distraught would be the best word
I can use, and that's underdescribed.
He was very very upset.
LAUREN: I think that's when things got really tough
because at first we were thinking okay, this is
an injury we can come back from it.
And then all of a sudden there was a thought,
"I'm never going to play again".
(♪♪♪)
KELLY: Well you know, I went back and forth.
But I did think he should have the surgery.
DR HARNESS: Surgery would be to increase the stability.
Because when you tear a joint that much, the problem
is instability.
And the joint simply won't work properly if
it's not stable.
So the surgical intervention is to give it its
stability back.
Unfortunately that's done through internal implements,
screws, anchors, and so on and so forth, rather than trying
to get the tissue to fuse back to the bone in a natural way.
BOB: We have to make a decision in 48 hours
whether or not to operate.
I remember just sitting there going, "48 hours,
gotta make a decision".
That was me.
You can imagine what was going through Connor's mind.
JEFF: He was very emotional.
And it was very difficult for him to talk, and I could just
sense that he was devastated by the thought that his career
was either very much going to be altered or come to an end.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Jeff, he said, "Listen the surgery is scheduled
for Tuesday, but we'll go get another opinion".
And he set that up and with the help of Mr. Katz,
and the Oilers, he set up a third opinions.
So, that's where we go to L.A.
to meet with another doctor and he goes, "Yup.
Second doctor is right: you got all that stuff,
but the surgery is risky.
I don't believe in the surgery.
I would try to rehab this," so, I mean, now
what do you do?
I mean.
MARK: Yeah, I think at that point I didn't want
to be involved, to be honest with you.
(laughs)
INTERVIEWER: And why?
MARK: Because to go a nonsurgical route with that
severe of an injury, I've never done that before.
I mean, I've rehabbed a lot of post surgical knees and hips
and shoulders, but to do that with no surgical intervention,
I mean, I don't know many people that have ever done
that before.
CONNOR: I have to make this crazy decision, I mean, that
is either going to either make or break, 20 years of my life
plays out, the rest of my life plays out.
I've got to make this decision at 22 and I got to make it in
24 hours, because they had scheduled the surgery with the
second guy for, like, four days later.
It was already scheduled.
The surgery was scheduled.
(♪♪♪)
ANNOUNCER: --McDavid flying in!
And he ceases into the Flames' net.
DR MASCIA: When I saw that, it reminded me back of my
We call that a dashboard injury, when the dashboard
hits the knee, and the knee almost dislocates.
DR MASCIA: PCL's cut right in half, so that's a complete
tear of his Posterior Cruciate Ligament.
The back of the knee joint, there's a lining.
It was completely torn.
Because a rotational component to the injury, his popliteus,
which is a muscle at the back of the knee, on the outside,
it was completely torn also.
He's got a tear of his lateral meniscus.
He has a tear of his medial meniscus.
So both menisci, or cartilage, are torn.
The other thing that surprised us, not only a bone bruise,
but a crack in the front of his tibia where the impact,
where the tibia hit the goal post, he actually had
a fracture.
It did not show itself until about 10 days later.
(♪♪♪)
JEFF: No, I think any athlete that things that they're going
to miss an entire year, and then at the end of that not
know what they're going to come back like is
terrifying for them.
CONNOR: For me, hockey is my life.
Playing sports is my life.
Being active is my life, and all of a sudden that was
all up in the air, so.
JEFF: The doctor that he saw in Los Angeles, Dr Alatrosh
that consulted with several doctors and told him
"It's bad, but I wouldn't do surgery right now".
That's what he wanted to hear.
He didn't want to hear that he was going to miss the year
and that he had to have surgery.
I don't think he was convinced that he didn't
need it, but he still liked the fact that
"Okay, I'm gonna try this".
MARK: It had to be his decision
And there was a silence interval there where he
was pretty down.
And that's when, you know, I discussed with Jeff,
I mean if I'm gonna do this I'm gonna have to actually
live with him because it's an emotional grind to go
through, and for someone that's never gone through it
before, a young guy like that, it's a full time job,
and that's really what I emphasized to him.
This is seven days a week.
It's 10 hours a day until it's done.
And that's just the reality of it.
DR MASCIA: Here we have this bone bruise in the front,
this is where the impact was on the goal post on the tibia.
Let me bring you to another picture here.
Showing this crack right there.
See there's a dark line?
That's the crack in the bone.
That's the fracture.
Surgery, for a PCL injury is major surgery.
ACL surgery, most athletes get back to the elite level
in six months.
PCL is a much bigger deal.
It takes up to a year.
Not wanting to have surgery, we told him that, alright,
if you start this process that's non-operative, we got about
a 50% chance, you know, by the end of the summer to get you
maybe skating again, maybe.
MARK: What's the best plan of action?
And so it came down we were going to brace the knee,
and we had to deal with the plateau fracture, the bone
issue, and so he was in a hyperbaric chamber daily
for about 40 days.
CONNOR: Mark had suggested that I would go do a
hyperbaric chamber every day.
And so I was not very excited about that.
INTERVIEWER: What was it about that you didn't like about it?
Was it the claustrophobicness of it?
CONNOR: Yeah well you're just in a tube.
MARK: And we've had a lot of success in the past on
bone tendon injuries with hyperbaric oxygen treatment,
and it's a static treatment, so he could lay in there with
his brace on and everything, and then we could evaluate
healing potential.
Because you can't load it until that foundational thing
was established.
CONNOR: I remember at one point a doctor had cleared me
to flex my quad muscle.
So I would be in there and you're in there
for two hours.
I would just flex my quad muscle for 10 seconds on, rest
for 10 seconds, 10 seconds on, and I would do that over and
over again just trying to save the muscle.
JEFF: If we could get the bone to heal and we could get some
fibers attaching, then we knew we had a chance to do it.
So if that bone wasn't gonna heal, he was gonna have to
have some kind of surgical intervention.
(♪♪♪)
BOB: We know that there's frustration with the fans,
but I can tell you today, with naming Ken Holland as a
General Manager and President of Hockey Operations, this is
a perfect step for us to move forward in a positive way.
KEN: Talking with Bob Nicholson as I was going through
the process to eventually make a decision to
become the general manager of the Edmonton Oilers.
We did talk about Connor's injury, but it didn't seem
to be all that significant.
BOB: When I got to Kenny, he asked that question.
It wasn't the first question he asked, but he certainly
asked it fairly quickly through the process and before
he signed, and I gave him information.
I didn't give him all the information.
KEN: I don't want to throw Bob under the bus.
Certainly Bob did tell me he was hurt and he was healing,
I really wasn't quite aware how seriously he was hurt.
CONNOR: When Kenny came in, I don't think he really
even knew the severity of the injury.
BOB: We really talked about "Hey, we have to keep this as
tight as possible, hey, there is a lot of people poking
around, trying to get more information," and we
just clamped it down.
MARK: We sat down, and I think it was sort of a wakeup call
for Ken Holland.
Here's his best player with his new job, and like,
we really don't have an exact timeline.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: How are you?
JEFF: Mark Lindsay, he had a very structured plan that was
progressive, and again, back to the imaging, that was the
huge difference in this thing.
We did ultrasounds and MRI imaging every 2-3 weeks.
And you could actual see what was going on in the knee and
then he would adjust the rehab.
DR MASCIA: So, this multi-team approach,
my part as a radiologist or as a
sports medicine imager is we would image on a regular
basis, either MRI or ultrasound.
The imaging was as kind of little markers to say
"Okay, we're doing well, let's continue this path, maybe not,
let's back off this," so it's very finely tuned.
CONNOR: I'm in this monstrous brace.
You know, this brace went from probably here down to
just above my ankle.
I would go in.
they would say okay,
looking better, no surgery.
What's the next steps?
We would do the next steps, come back four weeks later.
Another MRI.
Is it good enough to continue with the rehab, or
should we do the surgery?
And there was a lot of times when we'd be sitting in that
office, me, Dr. Mascia and Dr. Lindsay and they'd be
like "Well, do we do the surgery or not? "
DR MASCIA: This is the back of the knee.
Here we see this mush here, all this white.
This is the ligament, the two ends of the PCL which are
shredded and kind of dangling like that.
(♪♪♪)
KELLY: I remember ever time he had an MRI appointment,
you know, it was always like "When did you say the
MRI appointment is?
What time is it at?
Okay, call me right after. "
You know, so we were always sort of on pins and
needles waiting for the results of each MRI I think.
DR MASCIA: The more pliable it is, the more sound waves
get absorbed.
GARY: Is that the right side that you've already done?
You already did the right side?
DR MASCIA: We're just doing the films.
GARY: I had doubts initially.
Process seemed a little slow initially.
We knew if he had surgery it was gonna be a 10 month rehab.
Obviously the fear was that we would go along this road to
August, September, and it wasn't healing, it wasn't
coming together, and initially, eventually he would
have to have surgery.
CONNOR: You know, we were in July and we were still saying
should we do the surgery?
You know?
So it always kept coming back, you know?
It's healing, but is it healing enough?
Is it, is it, is it ever gonna cross?
Because sometimes it can line up, but it's never gonna
cross, the gap's too big, it can't cross.
KEN: Well I would say to you, first off, my fears going
there is you know...you know, how severe the injury is and
how long is he going to be out, and you know, is it gonna
be significantly longer?
WOMAN: Hey, how are you?
MAN: How are you?
WOMAN: Good, good.
JEFF: I went to the hospital when we did the imaging
every time that he had it.
There was a point there was a point where before we saw the
results, it was one of those, if it's not reconnecting
today, the PCL, the fibers, we might have to think
about surgery.
And he was extremely nervous that day.
WOMAN: I think you're going to be going just now, and then
the ultrasound after.
Hold on.
(♪♪♪)
JEFF: Lo and behold that day you could see the fibers
had started to cross.
They said, like, "It's starting to heal,"
And at that point Connor, Connor just, you could see the relief.
CONNOR: That's a straight line, and here, it's better.
The meniscus is still a little white, but it's good.
MARK: So once we got past the first six weeks, we were
seeing the fibres were attaching, and then the bone
fully healed.
CONNOR: But that looks good, no?
Better.
JEFF: Yeah.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Third MRI, the fibers started to cross.
Now let's start loading it a little bit.
And then, you know, and that's where the pool comes in.
I mean, I spent so many hours in that pool,
it was ridiculous.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: We tried light jumping, all with the brace
on, still.
Just see how it reacted.
Then we'd MRI it again.
(♪♪♪)
GARY: That was something that our team had to manage every
day was the level of stress and the anxiety that he was
feeling, you know, when somebody tells you that,
you know, if you don't have surgery, your career's in
jeopardy at 22 years old, you can imagine the extreme
anxiety and emotional stress that comes with that.
GARY: How are you, buddy?
I'm just gonna say these gowns make these guys look so old, eh?
WOMAN: He's not coming back through.
LARUEN: He put many hours into it and dedicated a lot of his
time and a lot of his summer.
It was hard, but worthwhile.
(♪♪♪)
MARK: He's in the water with a flotation suit on, and he's
doing drills in the water, but up to throat, chest deep,
so he's between 5-10% body weight, and then we use the
imaging then to see how, what the response was of the
tissue, and then we would change our bias of the loading
from the imaging and from, daily diagnostics on it.
LISA: I was sent the video of his injury, and the injury
looked pretty devastating.
And I figured I'd have to meet him, see what
the situation was.
I do know Mark wanted an unconventional treatment plan,
meaning he did not want him to be immobile for four months
and then start rehab.
LISA: Good, and turn the thumbs down.
MARK: So when you're rehabbing a tendon or a ligament, it's
a little bit different than just rehabbing a muscle.
So there's a certain amount of stiffness that you're trying
to reestablish in that tendon.
ADRIAN: Every exercise has a set requirement to progress
to the next one.
Can he do 10 single leg squats in the pool?
Okay, great.
Now he can do 10 single leg squats with weight
in the pool.
LISA: Mark saw through Connor's this is a great
opportunity to work on all aspects on his training that
had been lacking up to that point, and probably wouldn't
have been noticed unless he had the injury, so it was
Mark's idea to bring me in at that point and not just
work with the knee, again, pelvic floor, core movement,
rotational movement from the hip to the knee to the ankle,
how is the body integrated.
MARK: So we're not just looking at his knee,
we're training around the knee, we're training his spine,
we're training his pelvis.
And then that transitions onto the ice so he's stable
in his motions on the ice.
You're walking a tightrope between doing too much and
irritating those early fibers that are attaching, not doing
enough, so you're not getting an attachment, so this
is where you have to have the right people around you and
the right backgrounds in order to do it.
LAWSON: So in collaboration with all of those things,
we look and say okay, well this is what I'm doing, this is
what else is being done out there, and just making sure
that one wasn't causing harm to the other, and that
everybody was going at the right pace to help him.
MARK: Doing this kind of rehab, there's a segmental
context to it, muscle, but there's also the brain's
interpretation of that movement of the muscle.
So you're creating a new map, if you will, in the brain.
It's like, the reason he's good is because he has an
amazing GPS map.
He knows exactly where his body is in space.
So on two feet moving in space.
And so when you have an injury at that magnitude, you have to
reestablish that map.
(♪♪♪)
MARK: They didn't really want him to skate 'til September,
and so I talked to him
and I said "I think you should go out on the ice with
your father, and just get on the ice and don't even think
about it.
Just move with your dad".
CONNOR: The funny part is we were not supposed to skate
until September.
So it was just me and Dr Lindsay that decided to go
skate, and my dad came out with me.
BRIAN: Watching him get dressed and slip that brace
over his leg and that was hard for me to see.
(♪♪♪)
BRIAN: Because you know there's something wrong, but
you know, he put his shin pads on and we just got dressed
and we went out on the ice.
CONNOR: It was something that I'll never forget.
I didn't really know what it was gonna feel like,
and I didn't know if it was gonna hurt.
I didn't know if it was gonna, you know, I had the big
brace on, so it wasn't gonna give out, but I don't know
what it's gonna feel like.
MARK: That was really a pivot point I think in the whole
Summer, because at that moment he wasn't injured for a
moment, he was just out there with his father.
And he totally changed emotionally from that day.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: And then I get out there and it feels great.
MAN: How good does that feel?
CONNOR: Mark Lindsay's like, "Okay, don't do any
stopping, don't do anything risky."
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: And in my mind I'm like, I gotta get ready
for opening day.
I always do.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Yeah, it was great.
MARK: You could just see that his face changed.
He started to smile and he started to laugh, and that was
a really big moment.
CONNOR: Just to know that even if this thing doesn't heal
anymore, I'll wear this brace and I can still play.
Obviously that wasn't the end goal, but it was still
a special moment.
(♪♪♪)
MARK: And they would do it a couple times a week then once
that first time he did it.
KELLY: It was huge, yeah.
BRIAN: I remember telling Kelly I was so excited just to
be skating with him again.
It was cool.
GARY: He was skating, believe me, initially in the summer
he wanted to skate, and was pushing to skate.
I was crossing my fingers every day he went on the ice,
and he'd be doing a drill out there that I thought was, you
know, too excessive for where he was at, and I'd be standing
on the boards looking at him going...no.
(laughing)
(puck clattering)
KEN: The question certainly was on my mind.
On one hand the athlete can come back.
But where's the athlete in relation to where his
performance had been in the past?
CONNOR: It's one thing to be out there playing the game,
but it's another to, you know, be doing it at a
high level and at that I think I'm capable of.
MARK: We started skating him with no brace, and so he would
do hockey skating in the morning, and then he would
do Tracy Wilson's, for edging.
So what I mean by edging is his position on his skates
in different transitions of movement.
TRACY: I think it's really important that you put the
athlete through a whole bunch of different movement so they
gain that confidence, because it's always in the back of
your mind when you undergo that kind of an injury with
that kind of a pain.
Any athlete is going to have that lack of confidence,
and you want to eliminate that.
You can't put your finger on one thing with Connor, because
it isn't one thing.
Physically he's a force, and his athleticism, but also
his mindset and intensity, and he is a student.
MARK: He was getting better and better with Tracy's
edging and transitioning of movements.
No pain, like really dramatic improvement, and I think
that's where really it all started to come together then.
(♪♪♪)
KEN: Twice a week I'm getting video tapes sent to me from
Mark Lindsay with Connor on the ice skating and they're
taking pictures of him.
They're taking, showing me pictures of him in the gym.
Dr. Lindsay's talking about opening
night's a possibility.
LAWSON: I looked at my calendar and I said
"Training camp?"
and he said "Yep."
And I said "okay, we've got work to do."
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Just focusing on my rehab and on the
injury itself.
It's tough to focus on anything else.
It's coming back together and everything like that, but
ultimately, you know, you don't want to come back too
early and make sure that it's fully healed and you're not
gonna get hurt again.
KEN: Certainly when the Biosteel there's lots of
questions and media are calling and they're starting
to, then rumours start and but certainly internally there was
a real comfort level.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: You know, you want to be healthy.
I hate missing games, and so I was doing everything I could,
make sure that that didn't have to happen.
We say the ultimate goal is to win a championship,
and obviously that's what I'm trying to do.
Yeah, that's the main goal.
DAVE: The biggest thing for me were the doctors finally
getting comfortable with him pushing a little bit, and
Connor getting on the ice and getting comfortable, and the
more he was around his teammates, the more things
he felt comfortable doing out there.
DAVE: Really fight that center.
You're way back, way back, way back.
DAVE: When he first came, we were talking, I said "How many
exhibition games you want?"
He says "Seven."
(laughing)
We had seven.
I said, "well, most veterans play four."
"I gotta get going."
(skates scraping)
BOB: It was tough, because Connor wanted to play,
you know?
Connor wanted to get in and play the exhibition game.
(♪♪♪)
MIKE: I was just in awe of how fast this kid bounced back from
a career-threatening injury.
And how impressive the time he put in and the way his body
responded was unlike anything I've ever seen.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Yeah, I got two pre-season games in,
and didn't feel that good at all.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: Like my first game all over again.
I was nervous.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: I prepared, rehab wise, a ton.
On ice wise was probably the least prepared I've ever been
for an opening night.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: There's lots of questions about my own game.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOW: How am I gonna feel?
How am I gonna play?
(♪♪♪)
KEN: Seeing him on opening night was, to have lived it
from May 6 to October, to see where we had gone over the
course of five months, really for me was incredible.
(♪♪♪)
ANNOUNCER: Picked up again by McDavid, straight up
the middle, it's in, scores!
What a goal!
BRIAN: It was relief.
I got pretty emotional actually when he scored.
KELLY: So happy.
Just so much excitement.
BRIAN: Oh yes, you have no idea.
You could see the relief coming out of him too with
his reaction after he scored.
If you watch, like he's, you know, he gets excited, and he
reacts when he scores, but there was a different level
in that one, you could tell.
BOB: He's back, and Kenny goes "Wow, this is special."
I say "Hey, wait.
There's a lot more games coming."
ANNOUNCER: Down the ice, and look at McDavid going after
that area pass, what a change, what a goal!
In front of McDavid, scores!
Here's McDavid alone, scores!
GARY: There's nobody that has done what Connor has done to
rehabilitate himself back from a serious knee injury
in that period of time.
ANNOUNCER: Zips across the blue line, and with a shot
he scores.
Down the midline to present, here's McDavid, scores!
It's answer time for the Oilers.
MAN: It's incredible that not only did he will himself back,
he willed himself back before the majority of people thought
he would be back.
(♪♪♪)
ZACK: I don't think people realize all the work that he
put into to not miss much time with the injury he had,
so it just shows the type of character and determination
that he had.
(♪♪♪)
MARK: Oh, absolutely.
MAN: He's not a normal person, obviously.
The difference in this rehab is he injured not just a
ligament but, you know, all the tissues, and no one
has really seen the PCL reattach to this level.
(♪♪♪)
ANNOUNCER: McDavid, McDavid drives his way, and here
is Connor McDavid!
Upstairs, what a goal!
Wow.
(♪♪♪)
CONNOR: To think that if I'd done the surgery I'd for sure
wouldn't be playing right now, it was a question whether or
not I'd play before the new year, whether or not I'd
play this year at all.
In fact, I've been able to play 30 games and been able to
play at a fairly high level and the team is doing well.
I definitely feel very lucky and I'm excited for
what's ahead.
ANNOUNCER: McDavid, what a move!
What a play!
What a goal!
(♪♪♪)
ANNOUNCER: Connor McDavid!
(♪♪♪)
♪ I'm going to another level.
(♪♪♪)
♪ To another level.
♪ Let's go, let's go, let's go. ♪
CONNOR: Very lucky I have the group around me that I do.
Definitely wouldn't be sitting here in this position
without them.
(♪♪♪)