This doctor stitches up Lightning players during games, making sure he creates no skating Frankensteins.
By Charles Slonim
Published June 18, 2004
TAMPA - He collapsed into a chair in his office, peeked out from underneath his Lightning cap, and a smile crept across his face.
For the first time in eight months - since Oct. 10, 2003 - Dr. Charles Slonim would not be going to a Lightning game with his supply of blue 6.0 prolene sutures and his sterile packets of needle holders, forceps and scissors.
Slonim had been at the Lightning's victory parade earlier in the day, and the reality of winning the Stanley Cup was finally sinking in.
"I consider this the pinnacle of my career as a surgeon," he said. "Because we really are just a big family."
And every family, at some point, needs a doctor. Especially one who can make house calls.
An easygoing man with a ready, Robin Williams grin, Slonim is to the Lightning what a pit crew member is to an Indianapolis 500 winner. Specifically, he is the team's "cut man," the doctor responsible for closing gashes and getting players back on the ice quickly.
He lives about 10 minutes from the St. Pete Times Forum in Sunset Park with his wife, two daughters and George the cat.
Slonim administers not just to members of the Lightning. He usually treats the home and visiting teams.
There are four doctors who tend to Lightning players: an orthopedic surgeon; an internist; a dentist; and Slonim, the team ophthalmologist.
Some nights he never leaves his seat next to the Lightning bench. Other nights, when bad blood between the two teams leads to real blood, he has stitched up as many as four players.
And he can always tell when the Lightning has played poorly. "More bumps and bruises."
Slonim, 51, has been the Lightning's ophthalmologist since the team's first season in 1992-93. Former Bolt star Chris Gratton, who now plays for the Colorado Avalanche, got his first stitches from Slonim, whose latest work can be found on Martin St. Louis.
The cut that's still obvious on the bridge of St. Louis' nose?
Five stitches from Dr. Slonim after game seven against the Flames.
"The first thing I ask myself is what's the damage?" Slonim said. "Then how am I going to put it together as fast as I can?
"These are MASH skills. It's not an operating room."
But the player's safety always comes first, and Slonim said he has never been pressured by coaches or other team officials to put a player back on the ice before he is ready.
That doesn't mean he can't work fast. He can put in a dozen stitches in a forehead in less than 10 minutes. He uses blue sutures because many of the cuts he closes are on eyelashes or scalps, and blue is more visible when it comes time to remove them.
He also uses the smallest thread he can "because the smaller the strands, the better the scar.
"I can do it quickly and make them look good," Slonim said. "I joke with them that I'm going to save their modeling careers."
He usually sits next to the bench, and if a trainer sees that a player needs more than a butterfly bandage, he signals to Slonim.
The first step, cleaning the wound, is vital to control infection. "They all spit on the ice. Then the puck and the sticks hit the ice. Then those things hit someone's face. There's all sorts of bacteria and germs that are on those surfaces."
If he can stop the bleeding, a player can finish the period before getting stitches in the locker room. If the wound is more severe, he'll have to stitch the player up immediately.
"My job is to close the wound," he said.
During the Stanley Cup finals, Lightning forward Ruslan Fedotenko got a cut that required stitches. To Fedotenko, the injury was nothing other than a nuisance. "I put six stitches in him between periods," Slonim said, "and he kept asking me, "How much time is left?'
"Some players have their leg off the table while I'm still sewing. I have to tell them, "One more. Just one more."'
Sometimes, especially when a skate blade is involved and the cut reaches the skull or other bone, Slonim has to use two layers of sutures.
In a game late last season, the Washington Capitals' Dainius Zubrus checked Lightning defenseman Jassen Cullimore from behind into the end boards. Cullimore had a piece of the plastic boards dug out of his lower lip and received 84 stitches.
"That's the most stitches I've ever done," Slonim said. "His upper and lower lip were completely opened up."
Season over, right?
Cullimore donned a face mask and didn't miss a game.
Most often, if the cut is small, Slonim will try numbing it with ice. If that doesn't work, or if the cut is too deep, he uses a shot of novocaine.
"But some players refuse it," he said. "There's one player on another team (he won't say who) that I've sewn up three or four times. He's one of the toughest in the league, and he apologizes to me ahead of time. He's deathly afraid of needles. He has to have one of his trainers hold his arms down when I give the injection. And he always yells. Then apologizes again."
Wounds made by fists, sticks or pucks usually leave jagged cuts in the shape of a star, an X or a Y.
"But the skate makes cuts better than my scalpel," he said. "Very clean, very deep."
Although no one wants to get smashed in the face by a puck traveling close to 100 mph or slashed by an errant swing of a metal or wood hockey stick, the players consider stitches a badge of honor.
"Most of them keep count of the number of stitches they've gotten," Slonim said. "It shows you shed some blood for the team."
Slonim's pay for his services - two free tickets to each game.
A clinical associate professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, Slonim is an eye doctor who specializes in ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery at his office on Fletcher Avenue.
He played in a garage rock band when he was young and lectures around the world.
If there were anything he could change about the game, Slonim said he would require that all players wear eye shields attached to their helmets.
"The majority of injuries are to the upper face," he said. "But players say the shields fog up, they can't see ... when (Calgary Flames star) Jarome Iginla got into a fight with Vinny Lecavalier, Iginla had a shield and Vinny didn't. Well, who's more at risk there? But Vinny doesn't like to wear the shield."
He also noted the NHL has no consistent policy regarding concussions, like the one that sidelined Fedotenko during the playoffs.
"It would be nice if there were some guidelines," Slonim said. "We run CAT scans, monitor the player closely and their safety is our first concern. Always. But there are no rules about when a player who had a concussion can go back in."
With the season over, Slonim will have his evenings and weekends free. He has some fishing, waterskiing and time with his family to catch up on.
Few people outside the health care profession can take a needle and thread and sew human tissue back together.
"People said I always wanted to be an eye doctor when I was little," Slonim said. "But I don't remember that."
What he did remember was that, when he was a young man, he liked to extend the lives of his favorite jeans by sewing patches onto the knees and seats.
"Hey, it was the early and mid 70s," he said. "Everyone did it.
"I just couldn't use iron-ons."
He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the New York Medical College, and did his residence in Cleveland. He began his practice in Tampa in 1982.
The players always tell him how glad they are to have him around. So they can get right back in the game.
"A reward you don't always get from your patients," he said. "It makes going to the game a joy."
He looks at it like being a tailor.
"Except that the parts - eyebrows, foreheads, cheeks - have to function."
Charles Slonim
AGE: 51
JOB: Tampa Bay Lightning's "cut man," who closes hockey players' gashes
HOME: Sunset Park
FAMILY: Wife, Barrie; daughters Arlie, 13, and Emma, 10
HOW HE GOT THE JOB: Asked by the orthopedic group that was initially brought on to treat the team.
BEST PERK: "The potential, and then the eventual reward of saying you were a part of a championship team."
