Hockey players mourn death of BYU athlete
Utah State hockey players attended a memorial service Monday night in Provo in honor of Jaxon Logan, a BYU hockey player who was killed Jan. 21 after being struck in the chest by a puck while trying to block a shot.
The USU team was playing two states away when Logan was killed, but felt the impact of the sudden loss.
“It just makes your gut turn,” USU head coach Jerry Crossley said. “You never want to see it happen.”
The Aggies found out about Logan’s death when a team manager called assistant coach Jon Eccles before their game against the San Jose State Spartans Saturday night, according to goalie Chris Webber.
“We had a moment of silence before the game,” Webber said. “[All of the BYU players] are in our prayers.”
The impact of the puck forced Logan’s heart to go into an irregular heartbeat. USU physician Jim Davis said the condition is known as Commotio Cordis, which translates to cardiac concussion.
“It’s a fairly rare case,” Davis said. “I’ve seen it once before from a car accident.”
Davis said about half of all cases are associated with sports injuries and the most common sport it has occurred in is baseball.
“I’ve never heard of it in this sport,” Crossley said. “It was a freak deal. We all know that stuff like that can happen, but you just got to keep on going.”
Aggie Nick Thiros said it is always bad to hear about an incident like this.
“It’s horrible regardless of what sport it is,” he said. “The chances of that happening are so slim. It just makes you sit back and think that it could have happened to any of us.”
Davis said USU is capable of handling most serious injuries in varsity sports and club hockey. He said he did not know the medical status of other club sports.
“I think our training staff is excellent,” he said. “We have the ability and equipment to manage most common problems. We also have physicians on site for all home games.”
Webber said USU is doing all it can to support the BYU team in its time of hardship.
“Our team signed a letter that we’re going to send to them,” he said. “Some of the [USU hockey players] went down to the memorial service. It was a hard loss for them.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu