M. Hockey's Cavanagh Skated With Torn ACL

AMHERST, Mass.—Thrifty with words as usual, assistant captain Tom Cavanagh described that early-January practice when he slid, feet-first, into the boards during practice and tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee thus: “I knocked something loose.”

Of course, most people would probably play up the pain-factor a bit more—but then again, most people probably wouldn’t continue playing Division I hockey with a torn ACL.

Cavanagh did, for 19 more games, until his collegiate career ended last night with a 3-2, overtime loss to New Hampshire in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

The only current Harvard senior to skate in all 138 possible contests, Cavanagh wasn’t about to let one measly torn ligament stop him.

It might have slowed him down a little, sure—he had earned 17 points in 15 games before he sustained the injury, versus just 12 points in the 19 contests after it—but as the curtain fell on the Crimson season last night, Cavanagh still held the lead, or at least a share of it, in every offensive category.

So just how tough is Cavanagh?

According to Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Sport Medicine website, “The ACL…stabilizes the knee to allow pivoting, twisting, and jumping sports.” When the ACL is torn, then, “the knee may feel unstable and give out. The knee usually swells a great deal immediately (within two hours). Over the next several hours, pain becomes more severe and it becomes difficult to walk.”

So what did Cavanagh do?

“I think I took the next day off,” he said, “and then I played that weekend.”

That early-January weekend, after all, featured two games against Colgate and Cornell. League games. Very, very important games. Games Tom Cavanagh was not about to miss.

Initial swelling precluded the ACL diagnosis, and so, with what was deemed a hyperextended knee, Cavanagh quietly went about his business.

From the stands, press box, and bench alike, it was apparent that the forward was a step slow, a pace behind. Said teammate and captain Noah Welch, “we knew he was battling at about 75, 80 percent.”

And just before the Feb. 18 home game against Clarkson, an MRI pinpointed the torn ACL.

“We heard about it,” Welch said, “and we honestly thought he was out.”

Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 couldn’t stave off similar notions.

“I tried just be fair, and to say that whatever decision that he had come to, I would back him up 100 percent,” Donato said. “I would understand if [Cavanagh, a San Jose draft pick] wanted to go get his knee fixed now and get better for the next hockey at the professional level for him.”

Of course, Cavanagh didn’t want to look ahead.

“He wasted no time and said, ‘Coach, I want to play,’” Donato said. “To be honest with you, I was jumping for joy inside when he said that.”

Assured by doctors and trainers that any additional damage would be correctable, Cavanagh continued, with the help of a brace, to lace up and skate.

Says the MGH site, “the person [with a torn ACL] can usually run straight ahead and ride a bicycle without difficulty.”

Which would be great, except that Cavanagh was intent on skating the length of the ice for 60 minutes a night, not walking or riding a bicycle.

“If a person does not participate in pivoting sports and is relatively inactive,” the site reads, “the knee can feel quite normal without an ACL.”

Which would be great, except that the Crimson was anything but inactive, trudging through 12 games in 30 days, followed by the playoffs.

“Him lacing his skates up every day, and just coming down to the rink and playing like he does,” Welch said, “that’s why he’s one of our captains.”

In last weekend’s ECAC semifinal against Colgate, Cavanagh carried the puck through the Raiders’ zone with a defenseman heaped on either side. Cavanagh heaved a shot on net, and as he and the two Colgate skaters crashed the net, he knocked home his own rebound.

Donato called it “one of the nicest goals all year for us.”

“He’s just such a great competitor in big games,” he said. “It’s a tribute to him that he’s battled through what most people probably would have found as an excuse. I’m proud to be able to say I coached Tom Cavanagh.”

But Cavanagh—who has not yet scheduled the corrective surgery, as he was not sure when this season would end—didn’t see himself as “battling through” anything.

And while Donato admitted that “there was a part of me that really found it difficult to bite my tongue, because to me, it was one of the most courageous stories in all of college hockey this year,” Cavanagh harbored no such inclinations.

The senior admitted, in a rare moment, that his knee was “sore,” and that it showed “some aggravation and swelling.”

But that was it. No more.

“It’s playable,” Cavanagh pronounced. “Players have played with it. You can play hockey with a torn ACL.”

Dr. Bertram Zarins, Chief of MGH Sports Medicine Service and the team physician for the NFL’s New England Patriots, the NHL’s Boston Bruins, and MLS’s New England Revolution, granted as much.

The pressure on the average hockey player’s knee, Zarins explained, is less than that on the knee of, say, your average basketball player.

In hockey, “you don’t really move the knee very much,” Zarins said. “It’s more from the hip.”

“Your knee is bent,” he added, “and you’re not pivoting [like a basketball player]. Hockey is a sport where some people [with torn ACLs] can do well.”

Some people.

But how many can spearhead their squad's offensive campaigns on just one good leg—and play both ends of the ice well enough to earn league honors as Defensive Forward of the Year, no less?

“[Cavanagh] didn’t say anything about it,” Welch said. "He just went and got prepared and played, and he put up some numbers.

"He was our best forward," Welch added. "With a torn ACL."

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.