The Free Press’s Kristen Jordan Shamus reports that former Red Wings goaltender Manny Legace, currently the Columbus Blue Jackets’ goaltending coach, contracted the coronavirus this past summer, and he became extremely ill:
Manny Legace stopped thousands of shots for six seasons as a goalie for the Detroit Red Wings — including during the team’s 2002 Stanley Cup championship run — but he wasn’t prepared for the blow the coronavirus dealt him.
Legace, 48, now the goaltending coach for the Columbus Blue Jackets, grew teary talking about the ordeal during a news conference Thursday.
He was hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital earlier this month, when the virus made it hard for him to breathe and he developed blood clots in his lungs.
“I was extremely afraid,” he said. “I was very lucky to make a lot of saves in my career, but Henry Ford Macomb made the biggest save of my life.”
Legace, who had yet to get a COVID-19 vaccine when he contracted the virus in mid-August, said he and his wife, Giana, had both followed the same pattern of symptoms initially.
But when they were at their home in Novi over Labor Day weekend, her cough and breathing had begun to improve while Legace’s grew worse. He didn’t think it was a big deal.
Continued; Legace was unvaccinated, but vaccines aren’t silver bullets of immunity…
