Renaud Lavoie revealed today why he wasn't in TVA Sports' latest two Canadiens games broadcasts.
Montreal Canadiens’ fans who watch the game on TVA Sports have noticed that someone was missing from the broadcast team over the last two games: Renaud Lavoie. The journalist, who has covered the Habs for years, was missing for Game 6 and did not appear for Game 7 either, prompting fans to wonder what had happened to him.
On Tuesday morning, Lavoie penned an article on TVA Nouvelles revealing the reason behind his absence. He explains that, while he was working out at the Bell Centre after the Habs and the Tampa Bay Lightning finished practicing on Friday, he felt a “pop” on the right side of his head and became dizzy.
He contacted the Habs VP of communications, Chantal Machabee, who asked him to join her in the Canadiens’ dressing room, where therapists Maxime Gauthier and Daniel Chammas took charge. As the symptoms kept worsening, his colleague Patrick Lalime drove him to the hospital, where doctor Jeremy Grushka was waiting for him. Within minutes, the appropriate tests had been made, and it was revealed that he had a carotid artery tear.
He was then transferred to the intensive care unit of the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital. An MRI revealed on Saturday that he had suffered two CVAs on Friday. Thankfully, there was no lasting damage, and Lavoie is on the mend. The reporter states he was lucky that the blood clots that got to his brain weren’t big, as if they had been, he wouldn’t be able to write now.
The article also mentions that he was told that, on average, three people are transferred to intensive care due to a CVA during each Canadiens’ playoff game. Lavoie encourages everyone to be alert and seek help as soon as possible when experiencing symptoms. This is a scary story, to say the least. We send our best wishes to Lavoie as he recovers.
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