HELSINKI – It’s the one room in the arena no player wants to see, and it’s the one room every player is only too happy to see when the need is there. It’s the medical office at Hartwall Arena, and it features an impressive array of equipment and services. Overseen by Dr. Markku Tuominen, the medical facilities available to injured players are comprehensive and impressive and a comfort to all just knowing the various gadgets and machines are on site if required. Leading the way is the brand-spanking new CT scan, a small but remarkable piece of equipment no professional hockey venue should do without. “The CT scan is for extremities,” explained Dr. Tuominen, “so if you need to have a picture of a hand or ankle, we can do it here in five minutes. It gives a 360-degree image, so we know very quickly when a player is injured or not. It helps the team a great deal because they get the results immediately and can determine if the player can continue. It’s better than an x-ray machine.” Of course, one of the main features of any medical room is the dentist’s chair, and Hartwall has a state-of-the-art version in this room. “We have a complete dental unit for players, and if they require more we have a dental unit in town which can do everything as well. It is one of the most frequently used of our services, for sure. We’ll have between five and ten issues during the tournament.” In addition, the more general First Aid room is frequented by players for cuts and bruises. “The First Aid room is where we can put stitches in,” continued the good doctor. “This is the most common injury in hockey that needs medical attention, no doubt. It depends on the game, of course, but it’s the lacerations that are most common. But they’re not so serious. A player can usually continue to play after.” One thing the casual fan might not know is that when a player gets stitched immediately, the area is not frozen. “We don’t have to freeze around the cut because there is not much feeling there right away. The area is pain free because they don’t feel anything. If they wait half an hour or so, then we have to freeze it.” Typically a player would come to the medial room, located near the Zamboni entrance, after any injury for assessment. Although Dr. Tuominen is reluctant to reveal personal player information, it is likely that Kazakh forward Roman Starchenko came to the First Aid room after being concussed during the game against France and before being sent to the hospital for further examination. “The team physician is always the first person to go on ice,” Dr. Tuominen elaborated, “but if he needs help, the ambulance staff will come out. As well, we [the IIHF] have a standby physician. We have a surgeon here as well as well as all of the specialists we could possibly need.” The staff work long hours during a tournament, what with two or three games a day in addition to the many practices. “We work here during all of the games and practices, but it’s the team physicians who are responsible for the players at first. Only in emergency situations do we take care of the players. We’re here for the players, and we have all the connections to local hospitals, to MRI machines, to having blood tests at a local laboratory. We’ve done that once already. We had a nurse draw blood and send the sample out for analysis.” The office also contains one of the five defibrillators located throughout the arena. Others are between the players’ benches and with the ambulance staff, and as Dr. Tuominen says without any humour, “I also take one to Congress.” An adjunct responsibility of Dr. Tuominen, of course, is drug testing. He is “responsible for the facilities of the doping control,” he pointed out. “We have doping escorts and doping officers, but I supervise everything there to make sure the proper guidelines are followed and organized correctly.” There are various and sundry other elements to the room which players need more than they care to admit. One table is replete with knee braces of every size and shape, and a medicine cabinet contains everything from cortisone to Aspirin. The medical table also has beside it a Cryolight which shines a cold beam of light on an injured area (a bruised thigh, say) to speed up the healing process. And in hockey, that’s what it’s all about – getting back on the ice with the greatest speed. The medical room may be unwanted by healthy players, but those in need take great comfort in knowing the best help is close by. ANDREW PODNIEKS