Laperriere Is Worried
(from the Daily News)
By Roger Phillips
Staff Writer
October 17, 1998 - A week ago at this time, Ian Laperriere was about to start a new hockey season. Now he's wondering when or if he'll play again in 1998-99.
Laperriere, the Kings' scrappy 24-year-old checking center, is in the middle of a difficult stretch of uncertainty stemming from the partially torn anterior cruciate ligament he suffered in his left knee during the second period of Monday's loss in Vancouver.
Sometime soon, he will try to skate, to see if he can play with the injury and avoid surgery. If he can't, the alternative is grim.
"It's scary," Laperriere said. "Hockey's all my life. Hopefully everything is going to work out for me. They don't know yet if I'll need surgery. Hopefully I won't because you never know what's going to come out if they go inside."
Laperriere said he's been told by doctors that if he needs surgery, the most optimistic projection for a return to the lineup would be February or March. The pessimistic view would have him missing the entire year.
"I can't imagine myself watching every game on TV," said Laperriere, injured in a collision with a Canucks player. "I just want to play. It would be pretty tough for me to sit out all season."
Laperriere's rambunctious style on the ice and his smallish stature make him vulnerable to injuries. Before this season, his fourth in the NHL, he'd missed 10 games because of three concussions, three games with a hip-flexor injury and 15 with a shoulder injury.
He is listed at 6-foot-1, 197 pounds but admits he's probably more like 5-11. The listed height, he said, came about when he was a rookie in St. Louis and the Blues wanted to embellish his dimensions because they wanted their team to seem bigger. But even though he isn't very big, Laperriere said injuries won't stop him from trying to play as if he is.
"I won't change my game," he said. "That's the way I play. Sometimes I don't protect myself. I can't change the way I play. If I change that, I won't be in the league."
Cashing in: Kings coach Larry Robinson said players will continue to be hit with fines for taking penalties he deems undisciplined or unnecessary. Such penalties plagued the Kings last season and were a problem in the Vancouver loss.
Robinson said one player objected to his fine because the Kings scored a goal while he was serving his penalty. Robinson responded by asking the player whether the fine should have been doubled if the Kings had allowed a goal while shorthanded.
"That protest was set aside very quickly," Robinson said.
The Kings will donate last year's fine pool to a charity, Robinson said, adding that the likely recipient is the Michael Jund Memorial Scholarship Fund. Jund** was a 22-year-old member of the Kings' media-relations staff when he died of heart failure in May.
**Note from Karen: My husband and I went to college with Mike Jund at Loyola Marymount University in LA. Nice to see him mentioned here.