...TO DIE ON A HOCKEY RINK

ONE MINUTE I WAS PLAYING IN MY BEER LEAGUE, THE NEXT I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL

- Peter Jakubowicz

ON NOV. 7, 2022, I DIED.

I didn’t realize it at first. I began to learn what happened when, out of the depths of nowhere, a voice asked if I knew where I was. I struggled to produce my monosyllabic answer: “No.”

The voice responded: “You’re in the ICU. You had a heart attack during your hockey game last night. A player on the other team saved your life.”

I didn’t remember going to a game last night. The last thing I remembered … I couldn’t remember the last thing I remembered. I didn’t even know what a heart attack felt like.

I heard no more questions. There was only darkness, and my grandfather’s voice, singing a polka: “In heaven there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here …” The voice modulated into something menacing, Luke Skywalker gone Joker, before I faded away. My sense of being alone in the dark stayed with me long after I realized I was in a room illuminated by artificial light.

My death occurred while I played beer-league hockey at the Winterhawks Skating Center in Beaverton, Oregon. My signs of life—breath, heartbeat, movement, the ability to perceive and form memories—left me. When I came back, I became fixated on the period I’d lost, what had happened to me and where I’d gone. It turned out there was more out there than I bargained for.

This is the forgotten story of my forgotten death.

I WAS RUSHED to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland and admitted to the ICU just after midnight. I had been unconscious when I hit the ice and remained so in the hospital.