Link Gaetz

On April 2, 1992, at 10:00 am, Gaetz was thrown from the passenger seat of a car driven by a friend. The friend, later charged with driving under the influence, had lost control on an off-ramp at 80 mph. Gaetz arrived at the Peninsula Hospital with back and facial injuries, and was semi-comatose for eight days. His mother, Sonja Koskinen, flew down from Vancouver to hear doctors say her son might die. His brain stem had been injured, and Gaetz awoke with his left side partially paralyzed and no memory of the accident. He left the hospital after six weeks. Over the next two months, he worked with therapists to regain movement and speech, and he confounded doctors by returning to the ice late that summer, skating twice daily. Several months after he was released from hospital he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. On September 10, 1993, Sharks general manager Dean Lombardi traded the 23-year-old defenseman to the Edmonton Oilers for a tenth-round pick in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft. From there, Gaetz never played another game in the NHL and found himself playing in a wide variety of cities and leagues all over Canada and the United States.[2] The Sharks used the tenth-round pick (240th overall) to draft Tomas Pisa, who never played a professional game.[3]

While he was playing with the Thetford Mines Prolab of the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH) on March 13, 2005, in a game against the Verdun Dragons, Gaetz did not take a shift during the first or second periods. During the second intermission, Gaetz changed out of his jersey and skates and went out to the concession stand to buy a hamburger and "promptly ate it". Thetford Mines Prolab considered this disrespectful to the players, and suspended Gaetz for the remainder of the season.[5][6] The incident later earned Gaetz the reputation as one of the "quirkiest athletes in pro sports" in Canada.[7]

A month later, five Prolab players were brutally beaten in a one-sided playoff brawl against the Sorel-Tracy Mission.[8] Video of the brawl quickly went viral. Gaetz was no longer with the team, and the remaining Prolab enforcers were injured, leaving the remaining players vulnerable to the Mission enforcers.

Gaetz was one of three former NHL players to take part in the Battle of the Hockey Enforcers, a made-for-TV event held in July 2005 which featured enforcers from various minor leagues fighting on ice in full equipment as if they were in a game-time matchup.[9][10] Gaetz's opening matchup was against Sherbrooke St-Francois forward Steve Reid.[11] Gaetz went down twice in the opening round and did not participate past the opening fight due to "concussion-like symptoms".