Sheffield Steelers match night commentator Jonathan Fearnley was one of the people who found themselves in the spotlight during Saturday’s events which saw Adam Johnson tragically lose his life, he has asked us to publish his thoughts on his experience of it and his feelings in the time that has followed.
This article contains some detail about the events that occurred during the incident and may be unsettling, please consider very carefully if you are ready to read it.
First of all, thank you. To everyone who sent messages in the immediate aftermath and in the subsequent days I am extremely grateful, I really appreciate you looking out for me. It’s reassuring to know that this level of support is there if I need it.
I had lots and lots of offers of conversations and counselling but I haven’t taken up any of them. I always replied to acknowledge the sender and while it’s true that at that time I didn’t want to talk about it, I won’t want to talk about it in the future either. It’s not that I was too close to the incident, more that I’m not the sort of person that likes to talk about these things, I know that it’s the modern way, but it’s not my way.
Over the years I’ve learned to manage my mental health not by talking things through but by distracting myself from them. There’s a reason I watch so much sport, when I’m invested in the cricket, football or whatever else, I’m not thinking about the things that would otherwise cause me pain. As I type these words, I’m simultaneously distracting myself with live NFL and baseball. The Steelers have been a great distraction over the years.
Have you ever left a hockey rink and been surprised by the weather you walked out into? Even if you knew what the forecast was, it stuns you for a moment. When you’re in the rink, you don’t think about the outside world, sport has a great way of insulating you from the things that really matter.
The issue I’m facing is that being back in the rink isn’t going to insulate me from the memories anymore. Having witnessed what I did, I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to look down at the ice without those memories coming back. I’ll find a way. Not sure how, but I will.
In 2014 Australian cricketer Phil Hughes died after being hit on the neck by a bouncer, I didn’t see it live but between the delivery and his passing a couple of days later I did see the video footage. His death hit me hard because I’d played a lot of cricket and knew that it could have been me, I would have played the same shot to that ball that Hughes did. I’ve been bowled bouncers many times and I’ve always gone for the hook shot, the same one Hughes played, in doing so, I risked missing the ball and being hit in the head. My thinking was that if I missed it then it would hit me on the head and whilst it would hurt my helmet would protect me from major damage. The tragic outcome for Hughes stunned me because I realised how wrong I was, I wasn’t protected, I was vulnerable.
I thought back to every hook shot I’d ever played. What if I’d missed one of them? Would I have suffered the same fate as Hughes? I wasn’t playing cricket at the time having switched my summer sport to baseball by this point but cricket was still my thing. I love cricket more than any other sport and have done since I was a child. Having to deal with this incident wasn’t easy for anyone in the cricket world, lots of debates were held about the bouncer – a delivery designed to intimidate, hit and even hurt batters – and whether it should be allowed any more given its potentially lethal consequences. Every bouncer that got bowled in the next few weeks and months gave you a slightly uneasy feel, it brought back memories that you didn’t want. Players were now wearing extra protection on their necks and you knew the same outcome wasn’t going to happen again but those thoughts persisted.
What happened next was that time passed, we didn’t forget Hughes but it got pushed so far back in our minds that it just wasn’t a thought that came up. In the 2019 Ashes I watched Jofra Archer bowl a barrage of high-speed bouncers at Steve Smith, he hit him several times and forced him to retire hurt, there were no calls for the bouncer to be banned, it was great test cricket. Hughes was mentioned as an afterthought, we said we’d never forget and we haven’t, but as a sport cricket has definitely learned lessons, recovered and moved on.
The rest of the hockey world will follow a similar pattern. Pay your respects, put on a neck protector and carry on. Time is a great healer.
It’ll take a lot more time for those who were there because of the graphic nature of the incident. Phil Hughes got hit and fell over, it wasn’t gory, it didn’t feel like you were watching someone die. With Adam Johnson, you knew within seconds that you were.
Sean Abbott delivered that fateful bouncer to Phil Hughes, he intended to bowl the ball at his head and he did, there was a tragic outcome, but the speed and location of the delivery was what he set out to do. Matt Petgrave can’t have ever intended for his skate to go anywhere near the head of Johnson. Abbott aimed for the head and hit it. Petgrave has had to deal with a load of other nonsense but he should take solace from how well Abbott coped and returned.
Abbott played his next game 2 weeks later and bowled bouncers, I can’t imagine the thoughts in his head as he did so but the cricketing world felt a sigh of relief as he bowled fast and aggressively again. He was going to be ok; cricket was going to be ok. His domestic and international career has not been affected, he’s a better bowler than ever.
Abbott’s experiences and recovery give me hope that Matt Petgrave can achieve something similar, when he next steps up at the blue line and delivers a big hit we’ll all hold our breath for a moment… but everything will be fine, we’ll cheer him and support him, we’ll make sure this incident doesn’t define him, it didn’t with Sean Abbott. There are 17 paragraphs on Abbott’s Wikipedia page, and the fourth is the only one that mentions the ball to Hughes, the rest are full of his wickets, successes and career progression.
I always thought someone would die on the ice one day. I’d spoken about it before. I didn’t think it’d be like this; I had a different scenario in my mind, it was going to be a slapshot blocked by a sliding defenceman, it’d catch them on the chin and the blunt force trauma would be fatal. The shockwaves felt around the game would result in full face protection becoming mandatory and lots of questions about why it hadn’t been enforced before.
As I write this, announcements are being made about the compulsory introduction of neck protection in UK hockey and this is obviously a good thing. There will be objection from some but they’re on the wrong side of the argument, it won’t fundamentally change the game and it makes everyone safer. There is no downside to this change.
It took one shot into the crowd killing a young girl for all of hockey to add protective netting above the glass. The lesson was immediately learned and appropriate safety measures taken.
I’ve never liked the ‘macho’ element of hockey, the risks taken just seemed so unnecessary and produced so little benefit, “Now I’m 18 I’m going to remove my full-face cage because I’m a man”. Can women play without a full cage? No, of course not, but men can because they’re different and better. Apparently. That same man then takes a puck to the cheekbone and is out of the lineup for a couple of months. They can go and be macho in the stands for a bit, or you could have worn the face cage and helped your team for the rest of that shift and the following games too.
This is not blaming Adam Johnson for not wearing protection. Absolutely not. It is asking serious questions of the people who, having seen the incident and its outcome, still don’t.
If I had been picked by Aaron Fox to play on Saturday, I wouldn’t have asked for a neck guard, I’d have asked why he’s picking a player who can’t skate backwards and I’d ask who’s going to cover for me on commentary but I wouldn’t have thought about that. I would want the full-face cage because I’ve seen enough people get hit in the face by sticks and pucks to know that’s not what I wanted to happen to me. I’ve seen blood on the ice before and it’s always been from someone who wasn’t wearing a full cage.
My first reaction on seeing the blood this time was that Johnson had either had his nose or teeth broken. When he took a couple of steps and more blood came out I realised that this was different. Then he fell to the ice. At that point I knew, I think a lot of people knew, I’d seen the Clint Malarchuk incident and I knew I was seeing the same thing.
I always go back and listen to my commentaries after the game, I think about how I called it and what I could do to be better and I get a huge sense of satisfaction when I get a call right and get annoyed with myself over the mistakes I make. I’m proud that I’ve got it right in some big moments over the years, I’m proud when Cardiff, Belfast and Fife fans tell me that I did a good job on their big moments, even as they came against the Steelers. I got really awkward as a young fan walked past me on the concourse at the 2017 Playoff Final weekend, looked up at me and said “It’s Desbiens!” Proud, yes but certainly awkward.
For the first time, I’m not going to listen again to my commentary of this game. I can’t. I don’t want to hear the pain and desperation in my voice. I just yelled out “Oh no. No. No. NO! NO! NO! NO!!!” as it became clear what had happened.
I don’t know what I said next. I’m fairly sure I was silent for a long time, that’s not ideal since I knew we had cut away from the scene to just show an empty goal but I also knew that the webcast viewers had seen what I did and they didn’t need an explanation.
What they might not have known was who it was. I knew it was Adam Johnson. Not initially on the hit, but as he came briefly towards the bench and went down onto the ice I saw the ‘47’ clearly, I knew it was him. I also knew I couldn’t get it wrong. I said something about knowing who it was but that I wasn’t prepared to risk a misidentification but I knew it was 47. That said, I also had to go to the EIHL website during the first period to check the Panthers goalie was called Mike Robinson, he was in my notes as Mike, Mike sounded right but I just had to reassure myself. If I had to check that, I wasn’t taking even the smallest chance on this.
Having said nothing for what felt like a couple of minutes I felt I had to say something. The viewers still just had an empty net to look at and I thought they needed an update, I definitely didn’t say it was Johnson and I don’t think I even said it was a Panthers player, just a player down receiving emergency medical treatment.
I’ve received praise for the way I handled myself and the commentary in general, I’ve seen enough distressing sporting moments, fatal and otherwise, to know how to handle this sort of thing. Don’t speculate, don’t give more information than you need to, don’t offer false reassurances. From Senna to Grosjean, Muamba to Eriksen, I’ve seen and heard other broadcasters get it right. Now it was my turn.
Whenever Dave Simms gave an announcement to the crowd, I repeated it to the webcast viewers just so they knew they had heard it correctly, if the crowd made some noise I explained why, I didn’t want there to be a misinterpretation of the applause the followed the players forming a ring around the scene. I didn’t want anyone to think that the applause was good news, I didn’t want to tell them it was bad news, I just had to say why there had been applause.
As the building cleared our director Dave Burnham told me that we were going to end the broadcast and I knew I had to find some closing words. I gave myself a moment but realised I had nothing to say, it became obvious to me that saying nothing is what I should say.
“We’re going to bring this broadcast to a close now. There is nothing more to show you. There are no more words to say.”
A few days later and I’ve found a few thousand more but at the time that felt right, given the response from the people watching, I guess it must have been.
I always commentate next to my dad, he lives in Sheffield, I live in Hull and we don’t get to see each other much apart from weekends at the hockey. Pre-game and period breaks are the time when we can chat and catch up on anything and everything that’s being going on in our lives. He had other plans for this game so wasn’t there. As always in these situations, I text him end of period updates with the score and a bit of game detail. As soon as we went off air, I realised that I needed to send him the update he’d have been expecting.
“Match abandoned. Accidental collision between Petgrave and Adam Johnson. Johnson down. Blood everywhere. Skate to the neck. I think he’s died.”
It was only when I typed that final word that I cried for the first time. I kept it together while we were live. I don’t think it was professionalism or anything like that, I knew within 5 seconds what the outcome of this incident would be but it was only once I’d acknowledged the word by typing it that the tears started.
I cried on the shoulder of our camera operator, cried in the Whitehouse, cried in the media room, I got back to my dad’s house later that night and cried uncontrollably in his arms. I’m so glad he wasn’t at the game and missed the incident itself but I’m sorry he had to see me like that.
I’ve kept myself busy in the last few days. I’ve been to a football match with work colleagues, been out for a meal with friends I’ve not seen for a while, I’ll be taking a road trip back to my old university soon, I’ve just tried to keep my mind occupied. I’ve found writing this being quite cathartic too. When I get a flashback to the sights and sounds, I quickly refocus my mind elsewhere, it happens every few minutes but I’m coping with it. The unknown that I haven’t come to terms with yet is returning to the arena.
When I’m at the football and I’ve got a quiet moment pre-match or at half time I can look out onto the pitch and replay famous goals in my mind, I can see the players, I can hear the crowd and the commentary, I can transport myself back in time to re-live those moments. Whatever worries have been on my mind are blocked out by happy memories, it’s a really good coping mechanism for me. It’s an escape.
I’m not yet sure how I’ll be able to escape the sights and sounds of Saturday, it’s going to be my default memory of that building and somehow, I need to make sure that it isn’t. I know from Phil Hughes that in time the game will recover and that we’ll all begin to enjoy ice hockey again. That passion will return, the pantomime booing of opposition players will be back and it’ll be a sign that we are healing. I still think we can do without the blood splattered Halloween shirts though.
When I next stand on that commentary platform there will be a ton of emotions to deal with, lots of imagery to block out. I don’t doubt my ability to cope with it, I’ll find a way, I always do, but if you see me at the rink or out and about anywhere, I still won’t want to talk about it. Talk to me about the cricket, talk to me about baseball. Please don’t talk to me about Saturday.
I have no more words to say.
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