Blog contributed by Matt Beezley
Anyone who has spent even a few minutes with me knows that hockey—particularly St. Louis Blues hockey—has been a cornerstone of my life since the day my mom shot a home video of me, aged 4, stumbling my way around the ice at a run-down hockey rink in Brentwood, Missouri, in 1994.
So it came as a shock to see Jay Bouwmeester, a staple of the St. Louis Blues defense for almost a decade, collapse on the bench midway through the first period of a game against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center in California. Bouwmeester is thankfully responsive and is undergoing a battery of tests to determine the incident’s cause.
This article, however, is not about the St. Louis Blues, as much as I wish it could be. Rather, this entire incident is a great demonstration of an organization responding quickly to a crisis, and the steps it took during that crisis that bear a lot of resemblance to the crisis plans every company should have in place. No doubt the Blues, and the National Hockey League, have protocols to implement in such scenarios (unfortunately, this is not the first time a hockey player has collapsed during a game, nor is Bouwmeester surely to be the last).
Thinking about this incident within the context of a crisis, I thought it might be interesting to review how the Blues responded, and the measures they’ve taken to ensure the safety of their players and the proper communication with core stakeholders.
Let’s begin, treating this particular incident as a crisis scenario for which every company must be prepared: employee injury.
These are just a few—albeit absolutely crucial—steps to a robust crisis plan, ones that have to be prepared in advance to quickly respond and adapt to a crisis on any given day. If you aren’t sure your company is prepared to navigate a potential crisis, do be sure to give us a ring.
