Hockey tragedy changes the way we see the fine print

It happens a few times a night, winter and summer, in just about every rink or ballpark with a grandstand big enough to charge admission. The warning is always there, on the back of every ticket, in small print.

A slap shot with some steam on it gets deflected or a better-than-average fastball is fouled off too high or too wide for the protective backstop enclosing the game. Suddenly, a projectile every bit as hard as a rock and traveling upward of 60 mph is on a collision course with a paying customer.

And unless you happen to be that customer, or someone nearby, you take for granted what will happen next: Some commotion at the spot the puck or the ball disappeared, some wincing, some wrestling over a souvenir, a pause ... and then the familiar notes of the organ trying to re-energize a crowd ahead of the next pitch or faceoff.

It will be hard to take those scenes for granted, at least for a while.

A 13-year-old named Brittanie Cecil died Monday night in an Ohio hospital, two days after being hit by a puck while sitting in the stands at the Columbus Blue Jackets' game against Calgary. The more you know about the story, the sadder it is.

Brittanie was attending the game as an early birthday present from her father. The injury that caused her death, more the result of complications from whiplash than trauma, was so rare that doctors with years of emergency-room experience doubt anyone would have noticed it right away. By the time it was detected, it was too late for doctors to do anything about it.

Brittanie's family members said they were "trying to make some sense of this tragedy." They started by donating her organs for transplant. A kid who touched others will go on doing just that.

The Blue Jackets and the National Hockey League, meanwhile, are skating on that very fine edge between showing respect for one fan without spooking all the others.

This is the first such fatality in league history and Brittanie's family has hired an attorney. There will be questions about the precautions in place and whether, in this era of athletes who skate faster and shoot harder, they shouldn't have been reviewed earlier.

Meantime, players will wear Brittanie's initials on their helmets for the rest of the season and promote a fund set up in her memory. They also observed a moment of silence before Thursday night's game against the Detroit Red Wings.

In what will be the first game at home since the young girl's death, the team also plans to heighten fans' awareness about the very real dangers presented by pucks hurtling into stands. For the time being, expect more frequent announcements over the PA systems at rinks, more messages on the scoreboards, maybe even larger print on the tickets.

But attending a sporting event has always been inherently risky -- at least that's what the courts generally rule. It would be nice to think somewhere down the road, this episode prompts some changes that make it a little safer to sit in the stands. That way, the tragedy of Brittanie's death won't be compounded by our inability to learn a lesson from it.

Moving on will be toughest on her family, of course, but the players who were in the rink that night will be thinking about her now, too. Columbus' Espen Knutsen has had a hard time dealing with the knowledge that his shot, which deflected off a Flames defenseman, hit the girl in the head. He continued to play, but has avoided discussing the tragedy.

His coach, Dave King, conceded he doesn't know what to tell Knutsen.

"We just said, 'Hey, whatever happens, we're not going to get on our guys,' " King said. "If they answer the bell and play well, great. If it doesn't work out that way, we're just going to hang in there with them because they've got a lot on their minds right now."

Jim Litke is a sports columnist for The Associated Press