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Ground zero leaves players shaken

Lightning players, on their first trip to New York this season, have a sobering day.

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 6, 2001

NEW YORK -- Brian Holzinger stood in front of the numerous memorials lining the fence of St. Paul's Chapel in lower Manhattan, and tried to find the right words.

The Lightning center wanted to pen a message of condolence and prayer, on behalf of the team, to those who lost family and friends in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.

Holzinger tried to find the right words, but couldn't.

"I didn't know what they should be," he said.

The Lightning, on Long Island for tonight's game against the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum, visited ground zero Monday. An arranged tour never materialized, so the players stood about a block away, on Broadway, behind police barricades.

It was close enough to see two bombed-out buildings that somehow remain standing next to where the main WTC towers once were, smoke from fires burning below the rubble and a huge crane hitting one of the buildings with a demolition ball.

The acrid odor caused by the fires was constant, its intensity made worse or better by the shifting wind.

"The smell of disaster," center Tim Taylor said.

"You don't appreciate it or really have a sense of it until you see it in person," said Holzinger, of Parma, Ohio, one of two Lightning players from the United States. "The most amazing thing was the smell as you got out of the bus. Things flying around and getting in your eyes. Every angle you looked at was worse than the next."

Right wing Ben Clymer, of Bloomington, Minn., said he has a friend who attends law school at nearby New York University.

"It makes you think how incredibly sick are the people who did that," he said. "It's just hard to understand how another human can kill 5,000 people. I just can't believe that. It was completely unnecessary."

It was chilly Monday in Manhattan. The clouds were low and the brisk wind made people pull their coats a little tighter around them. But hardly anyone passed St. Paul's, on the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street, without at least glancing at the memorials.

There were flowers and small prayer candles. Sheets and heavy construction paper were tied to the fence so anyone could leave a message.

The most-expressed sentiment: "God Bless America."

Another: "This has changed everything. Create a better and more positive future."

And in large blue letters on a red background: "Courage."

A woman stood in front of the chapel and cried.

"It's going to be hard when I go home and talk about it with my wife to describe it," said Taylor, who never visited the World Trade Center though he played for the Rangers from 1999-2001. "People have to see it to believe it. And that smell. It's buildings and it's people."

Just south of the chapel, at Dey Street, is a view of World Trade Center No. 5. Much of the facade of the black building is gone. Most of what remains is burned brown. A large chunk of steel hangs ominously off the building's side.

South again to Maiden Lane, where the view is of a smoldering pit with water being poured into it from massive cranes. To the right is World Trade Center No. 4, completely gutted and covered with gray ash.

A demolition ball crashed into the top floor. The sounded reverberated off the tall buildings across Broadway. Players watched. Not much was said.

Taylor was asked about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

"An eye for two eyes," he said. "You do something, and we have to come after you harder."

But Clymer was cautious.

"I think to the people involved we should do something," he said. "But I worry about the innocent people over there, thinking, "What did we do to them?' "

After about 20 minutes it was time to leave. It was time to practice and, for Holzinger, to finally find the right words.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with you," he said.

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