Goalie slips on floor, needs stitches after commotion at hotel

By Steve Gorten
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted October 29 2006

Uniondale, N.Y. · Panthers goalie Alex Auld received stitches over his right eyebrow after he says he slipped on a spilled bottle of water and hit his head on the marble floor of a hotel lobby sometime after 3 a.m. Friday.

Auld was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, treated and released, said Austin Guhl, the Panthers' coordinator of team services.

Teammate Ed Belfour said he accidentally dropped the bottle.

According to two eyewitnesses at the Garden City Hotel in Long Island, where the Panthers were staying, the incident happened after Belfour became disruptive in a nightclub connected to the hotel, causing a commotion when some teammates, including Auld, tried to get him to leave and go to his room.

One witness at the Posh Ultra Lounge said Belfour, 41, was flailing and fighting off his teammates, who were trying to pull him away while apologizing to the club's employees about Belfour.

Belfour called Auld's fall "a pure accident."

"I don't even know why we're talking about this now, especially on game day," Belfour said two hours before Saturday's shootout loss to the Islanders, in which he started.

Belfour said he was not drinking alcohol Thursday night.

In 2000, Belfour pleaded guilty to resisting arrest after scuffling with security guards and police at a Dallas hotel in the early hours of March 8. According to the police report after the Dallas incident, Belfour, loud and appearing intoxicated, spit in one officer's face, kicked two others in the chest, was subdued with pepper spray, and then offered officers money, first $100,000, then $1 billion.

Belfour received a $3,000 fine and 24 months unsupervised probation, requiring him to visit two area high schools to warn students about alcohol use.

Belfour insisted Friday's injury to Auld resulted from nothing more than "just horsing around with each other." At 3:20 a.m., Garden City police responded to a medical emergency, Lt. Michael Doyle said. Guhl said he didn't know who called the police about Auld, who practiced Friday and Saturday.

Asked about the incident Saturday morning, Auld said, "We're going to handle this internally. Everything is fine. I've been out on the ice, so it's no big deal. There's nothing that happened that's of anyone's concern."

"It's a personal matter and I'm not going to discuss it," coach and General Manager Jacques Martin said.

Team captain Olli Jokinen said the "issue" was addressed within the locker room.

"It's between us ... obviously we want to act like professional players outside the rink as well," he said. "Whatever happened there is not going to happen again."

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