Brendan Rowinski’s left knee will delay the start of his 20-year-old season.
It also had a bigger impact last season than he had ever imagined.
The Moose Jaw Warriors centre underwent off-season knee surgery on May 28 after he completely tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), partially tore his medial collateral ligament (MCL) and also tore the medial meniscus in his left knee.
Despite the extent of his injuries, he only missed four games.
“That happened, we think, just after Christmas,” said Rowinski. “I was playing with a knee brace already because of my previous knee injury, so that’s what allowed me to play — that and my leg strength. We didn’t think it was that bad at all. We thought it was meniscus, so it was a surprise to find that out.”
Surprise would be an understatement.
Rowinski first injured the MCL in that knee in training camp with the Calgary Hitmen in the fall of 2008. He wore a brace to support it for the past two seasons. He knew he had reaggravated the injury last season, but had no idea the extent of the damage.
Neither did the team, obviously. He sat the final three games of the regular season, but returned to the lineup for the post-season.
“Full marks to him for trying to will his way through,” said head coach Dave Hunchak. “He wanted to win at all costs. That’s something you have to give him credit for. Having said that your body is your business and you have to know how far you can push it. Obviously he pushed it too far.”
It was a very frustrating second half for Rowinski as his production dropped off completely as he tried to play through the pain. Not realizing the extent of his injury, he was searching for answers as to why the goals had suddenly stopped coming.
“Since I had such a good start, I knew what I could do and all of a sudden I thought ‘OK I tweaked my knee, but we don’t think it’s that serious, so why am I not producing all of a sudden?’ I just thought I was in a slump,” said Rowinski who still led the team with 30 goals last season.
He set a torrid pace as he netted 26 goals and 49 points in the first 41 games of the season. In the final 27 games of the season, Rowinski scored four more goals and added eight assists. In seven playoff games he was pointless and a minus-one.
“You can see by my performance that I could really feel it,” said Rowinski. “It would cause me a lot of pain, but I just wanted to try to help the team and go as far as we can. We didn’t think it was that serious, so we didn’t think we could hurt it any more.
“Every few games I’d hurt it again and it would be sore for the next couple of weeks. It happened over and over and became a pretty big problem for me.”
