Sergei Mnatsakanov may not have received the same public sympathy as Detroit Red Wings defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov over the years, but he faced similar adversities. Mnatsakanov, the team’s masseur, suffered severe brain injuries and was left paralyzed from the waist down following a limousine crash that occurred less than a week after Detroit’s 1997 Stanley Cup victory.
The crash happened as the players were returning from a golf outing, their final team event before the offseason. Red Wings defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov also sustained less severe injuries in the accident.
Former Red Wings forward Slava Kozlov recently revealed that Mnatsakanov passed away on Friday in Boca Raton, Florida, at the age of 71, due to cancer. Mnatsakanov had been living in Florida in recent years after moving from the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe.
In a 2004 interview with the Windsor Star, Artem Mnatsakanov, then 13, shared the daily struggles his father faced after the June 13, 1997, accident. “He was like a reborn little baby,” Artem explained. “My mom [Elena] had to reteach him how to read. His short-term memory was lost; he could remember things from ten years ago but not what happened 20 minutes earlier.”
Artem added that every day, his mother and he would have Mnatsakanov write out his address and other details to help him regain his memory.
Mnatsakanov worked as the Red Wings team masseur from 1993 to 1997. Former Red Wings trainer John Wharton expressed his sadness at Mnatsakanov’s passing on X (formerly Twitter), describing him as a great massage therapist, a valuable team asset, and an even better person.
