When Bad Things Happen to Good People
Dan Hickling
Minor League News
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The best sight on this average AHL night was that of Providence Bruins defenseman Chris Dyment, back in Black and Gold where he belongs.
That's something that seemed highly unlikely after an ugly New Year's Eve incident, which nearly cost him an eye, and his career.
Dyment was celebrating the New Year with his teammates in a Providence watering hole, when a fight broke out between the some of the players and members of a local gang. Dyment was an innocent victim, truly in the wrong place at the wrong time, when he took a beer bottle squarely in the left eye while rushing out the door to join his mates.
He underwent several hours of surgery, but doctors remained pessimistic about saving the sight in that eye. Forget about the career.
But Dyment didn't. Instead he made the long, slow climb back, suiting up for the first time last weekend.
"It wasn't easy," he said. "Sitting around for a month and a half, not doing anything. Then to start riding the bike, and getting back on the ice. It took me a few weeks for me to get up and down the ice once."
It took him longer to come to terms with the emotional fall out from the incident, which is still under investigation.
"It was a pretty frustrating time," he said. "A pretty angry time, too. I'm not an angry kid at heart, so it was tough dealing with that, knowing that someone is out there who would do that to somebody. But that's life, I guess. You've got to make smart choices in life about where to go. But it's over and done with now."
After all that Dyment has been through, he knows there are tougher things to deal with than winning or losing hockey games. But not many that are as rewarding.
"It was a lot of long days, and sore nights," he said. "But it was worth it."
You can't root hard enough for good guys like him.
Dan Hickling
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