This teen was cut by a hockey skate just like Evander Kane. Now he advocates for more protective gear in the game

Warning: This story contains imagery readers may find disturbing.

A Leduc, Alta., hockey player now wears a cut-resistant wrist guard after sustaining a similar injury as Edmonton Oilers’ Evander Kane, and advocates for more players doing the same.

Two years ago, Noah, then 14, went down during a practice drill.

“My teammate went to make contact and hit me and I just fell forward and he fell back and his skate came up and cut the side of my wrist,” the teen told CTV News Edmonton in a recent interview.

“I don’t remember any of it after that.”

But his dad, Cory Becker, who was in the arena at the time, does – in painstaking detail.

“The blood on the ice, it was pretty obvious what had happened right after that. Then panic set in for everybody,” Becker recalled.

“Just pure fear.”

The tendons of four fingers, the ulnar nerve, and artery in Noah Becker’s wrist were all cut by a hockey skate in 2020. CTV News Edmonton blurred this photo of the wound.

Noah was taken to the community hospital in Viking, southeast of Edmonton, whose staff were able to stitch him up well enough to make an emergency trip to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton.

The damage caused by his teammate’s skate blade was extensive.

“The tendons to four of my fingers were cut and then the ulnar nerve, which runs up the side, that was cut. My artery and then the rotator discs, which move my wrist side to side, were all cut,” Noah said.

In this photo, Noah Becker’s wrist is stitched up.The tendons of four fingers, the ulnar nerve, and artery in his wrist were all cut by a hockey skate in 2020.

Two years later, the family’s trauma quickly resurfaced on Nov. 8 when Kane went down on the ice in Florida, blood pooling below him on the ice.

“It took me right back to that exact moment,” Noah’s dad told CTV News Edmonton. “I’ll never forget it for as long as I live, and when I saw [Kane’s] panic, I panicked.

“I’m like, ‘That’s exactly what happened to Noah.”

The Oilers forward has said his cut is bone deep. He faces three to four months of recovery.

Immediately after the injury, Noah says, he couldn’t move his hand “at all.”

“They’re just trying to make sure everything stays sewed together and like nothing separates.”

He began physiotherapy after the stitches were removed, “but it’s a super slow process” working through each joint of the fingers down to the wrist.

Noah Becker’s wrist, pictured here in November 2022, is almost fully healed after it was cut open by a skate during hockey practice two years earlier.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play again, we just didn’t know if I was going to be able to again because of how bad the injury was,” Noah said.

At the time, Becker and his wife had doubts of their own.

“When you watch your child go through that, it’s like, I don’t know if I want him to play again,” Noah’s dad remembers thinking.

The family began researching what other protective gear exists and found the cut-resistant cuff Noah now wears on the ice.

Kane’s injury and the merits of mandating cut-resistant sleeves were discussed at NHL general managers meetings earlier this week, TSN has reported.

The Beckers believe more protective gear should be necessary.

Cory Becker, left, and his son, Noah, right, from Leduc, Alta., recall a 2020 practice in which a skate slit open Noah’s wrist.

“These things do matter and they do help save kids’ careers and kids’ lives,” Becker told CTV News Edmonton.

“I would not hesitate to tell anybody that wearing this protective gear should be a must.”

Now 16 and almost fully healed, Noah is a forward with Thunder Pro Hockey in the Hockey Super League.

The return to the game has been tough, but rewarding.

“By the time I was able to get back on [the ice], I was more motivated and more excited than I’ve ever been to play hockey.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Darcy Seaton