Price, Lemieux to discuss injury history at Hockey 911 fundraiser

Carey Price, Paul Byron, Mario Lemieux and Marc Bergevin will pull back a virtual medical curtain Sept. 22 as featured guests for the third annual Hockey 911 conference in support of the Montreal General Hospital Foundation.

Price, the Montreal Canadiens goalie, will be joined by Montreal forward Byron, Canadiens general manager Bergevin and Pittsburgh Penguins legend and co-owner Lemieux for a behind-the-scenes look at some of the greatest health and injury challenges they've faced as players and a GM, and the role played by Montreal General medical professionals to get them back on their feet.

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin and forward Paul Byron.
Held for the first time in 2019 at Bell Centre, then moved online last year with public gatherings restricted by the coronavirus pandemic, The third edition of Hockey 911 again will be an interactive, virtual event celebrating the Canadiens' century-long relationship with the emergency and trauma teams at Montreal General.
Registration for the event is $25 per household, with funds used to support life-saving care at Montreal General and across the McGill University academic health network.
Price and Byron each is recovering from late July surgeries. Price had knee surgery July 23, and with a recovery timeline of 10-12 weeks is working toward being ready for the start of the season, Oct. 13 at the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Canadiens announced July 30 that Byron had hip surgery and would need five months to recover, which would take him to the end of December.

Pittsburgh Penguins captain Mario Lemieux hoists the 1991 Stanley Cup.
Lemieux won a battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma and dealt with myriad injuries during his Hall of Fame career, including a spinal disk herniation, chronic tendinitis of a hip-flexor muscle and debilitating back pain.
The three players and Bergevin will be interviewed by event host Gregory Charles during an evening of storytelling that will cover the medical hurdles each has faced.
Front and center in the first two editions of Hockey 911 was Dr. David Mulder, the Canadiens' long-time head physician who returns for this year's event. Mulder is Montreal General's former surgeon-in-chief, former chairman of the department of surgery and former director of the division of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at McGill University. He has been a medical pioneer almost since the day he arrived in Montreal in 1963 from his native Saskatchewan, instrumental in care, education and research at Montreal General and the lead in the restructuring of trauma care in Quebec.
Mulder and his late friend Dr. Douglas Kinnear this year published a book as part of Montreal General's 2021 bicentennial. "Hockey Doc: Stories on Fifty Years of Medical Care to the Montreal Canadiens," exhaustively chronicles the profound relationship between the hospital and the hockey team, and beyond.

Dr. David Mulder was featured in the first two editions of Hockey 911, in 2019 and 2020. He'll be an important part of the 2021 edition.
"I was on the phone with Doc Mulder] after my surgery and he brought up the idea of my appearing on Hockey 911," Price said this week. "I said, 'Yeah, of course, Doc, I'd love to do it for you.' He's been taking care of me my whole career. I'd do anything for him.
"I'll talk about my experiences with Doc, our team doctors and my visits to the General. There have been times when I've been very ill, I've gone in there for [intravenous] treatment and they've got me back to health for a game. With our schedules, we don't have time to be laying around and being real sick for very long since we'd be missing games. There have been various injuries throughout my career where doctors have evaluated me and helped formulate plans for my rehabilitation and I'm very grateful for their input.
"There's a lot of moving parts with our medical staff and the doctors but they all work together to make plans for our recovery."
*The third annual Hockey 911 interactive conference is Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. ET. The cost is $25 per household. Register here: [https://www.mghfoundation.com/en/events/hockey-911-2021-edition/
"Hockey Doc" is available online at various booksellers.*