Casey Cizikas finally appears in good spirits after mentally struggling with his severe hand injury.
It took Casey Cizikas less than a week to notice the difference.
The walls were closing in on him and he could hardly bear the feeling much longer. But these weren't the same walls hockey players make their living inside -- the walls that opponents try to smear him along.
For Cizikas, these walls felt much more uncomfortable than the rugged, unforgiving boards of the Hershey Centre could have ever felt. And yet, it was those same walls at his home junior rink that put him in this unpleasant situation.
Unable to sit through another minute of television, days after suffering the injury, Cizikas put the remote down and went for a walk.
"Starting on Wednesday, I basically just wanted to kill myself," said a more upbeat Cizikas late last week. "I couldn't really do anything because my hand hurt so much and I was basically just sitting on the couch all day, just resting and you know what -- TV only gets so exciting. It gets boring after so long."
Cizikas would feel the walls of his billet house closing in on him partly because of those at the Hershey Centre. He meant to only dump the puck in at the end of a shift when London Knights defenceman Jarred Tinordi plastered him along the wall.
Cizikas, who said it was an innocent play, knew there was a problem immediately after taking the hit.
"Right away it started killing," he said. "I was kind of hoping it was like when you get hit by a puck. It hurts for a couple minutes and it kind of dies down, but the pain didn't go away at all."
Cizikas later found out that he broke the scaphoid bone in his left hand, the same injury that limited former Moncton Wildcats forward Kirill Kabanov last season in the Québec Major Junior Hockey League.
The Mississauga St. Michael's Majors will do without their captain for the remainder of the regular season, which wraps up Sunday. Cizikas is hopeful he won't miss much of the playoffs, but he's expected to at least miss the first round.
Any discomfort Cizikas feels in his left hand, however, pales in comparison to that of watching his team from the stands.
"It's one of the worst feelings out there," he said. "I can't wait to get back on the ice. I'm dying and itching right now. Every day is just killing me."
Cizikas is being careful not to re-aggravate the injury, but is hopeful to commence skating this week. At which point, he says, he's actually looking forward to a bag skate from head coach Dave Cameron.
"These are the times that it's most important where I'm not doing too much to aggravate it or make it worse," he said. "When it's time to get serious and when it's time to get back out there, (Cameron will) be on my ass harder than anybody to get back in shape and basically get up to as close as I can to game speed."
In the meantime, Cizikas has had ample opportunity to think about the upcoming MasterCard Memorial Cup. If there's a silver lining, it's that his team is hosting the tournament and that there will be hockey left for him to play should the injury require another two months of healing.
Among the subjects he's been able to ponder since the injury are comments made by former teammate Brayden Schenn. Schenn picked up his second-straight silver medal at the world junior championship alongside Cizikas as a member of Team Canada in Buffalo, N.Y.
Schenn's first silver medal at the 2010 world juniors was the first of three second-place finishes he would endure. The other was losing in the MasterCard Memorial Cup final as a member of the Brandon Wheat Kings last May.
"Before we left and we had our last night at the world juniors, Brayden Schenn came up to me and said it sucks losing two things in one year," Cizikas recalls. "And he goes, 'good luck buddy and don't let that happen.'"
Those were strange words coming from a player whose team might also be playing for the national championship in May.
"They're hot, Saskatoon," said Cizikas, who now has the time to keep up on potential Memorial Cup opponents from other leagues. "Hopefully I might end up seeing him there."
He's also hopeful he'll have plenty of time to prepare for the tournament through playoff hockey. Cizikas will gladly trade one set of walls for another.
"Sitting, doing nothing during the hockey season -- it gets real boring," he said. "As soon as I'll be able to lace up my skates and go out there, I'm going to be the happiest guy."
