By Karen Kwan
Shortly after the buzzer sounded at the end of an Edmonton Oilers home game, Dr. Trevor Ushko rushed to the visitors’ dressing room and stuck his thumb into the mouth of an injured player. As blood streamed down the player’s face, Dr. Ushko quickly identified the broken maxilla and pushed the knocked-in teeth back into place. “I had to push on his teeth to try and reduce the bone fracture. I pushed a couple of times very hard,” he recalls. “All of a sudden, I hear a huge ‘pop’ and the bone reduced back into place.”
After treating the visiting player, who continued his road trip to Winnipeg that night, Dr. Ushko reached out to the Winnipeg Jets team dentist to arrange follow-up care the next day. Over the past dozen years as one of three dentists for the Oilers, Dr. Ushko has treated numerous serious injuries, plus the usual stitches and broken teeth. Surprisingly, despite last year’s intense playoff run, the team dentists didn’t face any major dental emergencies.
A Call to the Big Leagues
Dr. Ushko, a passionate Oilers fan, former competitive youth hockey player, and assistant coach for his daughters’ hockey teams, calls the sport a central theme in his family’s life. He considers it an honour to be part of the Oilers but didn’t seek out the role. In 2011, Dr. Nathan Kern and Dr. Ben Eastwood, two of the Oilers’ dentists at the time, approached him to replace Dr. Tony Sneasewell, who was retiring. The three had already played hockey together every Friday afternoon as part of a group of dental professionals. “I love hockey. I’ve played it all my life. They thought I’d be a good fit,” said Dr. Ushko.
It’s a job that only a handful of dentists have held since the Oilers joined the NHL in 1979, as team dentists typically stay until they retire. It’s up to the existing dental team to find a replacement when one of us leaves or retires. “It’s a unique experience, and a privilege to do it,” he says from his Coronation Dental Clinic in west Edmonton, where signed Oilers jerseys hang from the walls.
Though it’s a bonus to work with his favourite hockey team, Dr. Ushko says he finds fulfillment in helping patients. As a teenager, he considered following his brother into medicine but turned to dentistry after learning more about the profession from a close friend who was in dental school at the time. This June marked 25 years since he graduated with a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Alberta.
If something happens, we just do whatever we need to do, emergency wise. The goal is to get them cleaned up and comfortable so they can get back on the ice as quickly as possible.
Dr. Trevor Ushko
Behind the Bench: Dentistry on Call
Dr. Ushko and the team’s other dentists—Dr. Kern and Dr. Marc Coulombe, who replaced Dr. Eastwood after his retirement in 2021—rotate working every home game. At the arena, they position themselves near the Oilers bench, ready to respond to any dental emergencies involving players or on-ice officials, alerted through their headsets. “We’re on call during the games,” he explains. “If something happens, we just do whatever we need to do, emergency wise.”
The dentists will then see them in the office the next day or that night. When a visiting player heads to the next city on their road trip, the Oilers dentists coordinate with the team’s dentist for follow-up care the next day. “The goal is to get them cleaned up and comfortable so they can get back on the ice as quickly as possible,” Dr. Ushko adds.
Besides dealing with damage from a puck to the face, a check into the boards, or elbow to the jaw, Dr. Ushko says he has also extracted fragments of broken composite stick fibres embedded in a player’s lip. He jokes that the job carries its own hazards, especially with Edmonton fans’ loud support, particularly during last year’s Stanley Cup Playoff run. “There are days when I leave and I’m driving home, and I can’t hear as good as I did before,” he laughs. “I have never experienced how loud the arena was,” he says of Game 6 when the Oilers tied the series versus the Florida Panthers. “The whole experience was exhilarating.”
In addition to Oilers games, the Oilers Dental Team has also worked at other major hockey events in Edmonton. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they provided all dental care for the 2020 NHL playoff bubble at Rogers Place. They also helped Dr. Bob Ridley cover the 2020-2021 World Junior Hockey Championship bubble, as well as working a few games during the 2021-2022 World Junior Championships that was cancelled due to a COVID-19 outbreak and rescheduled to August 2022.
For Dr. Ushko, working with the Oilers has become something of a family affair. His brother, an emergency medicine doctor, and his brother’s wife, a pediatrician, are also part of the Oilers medical team.
There From the Beginning
The nature of on-ice injuries has changed in the years since Dr. Eastwood became a team dentist, back when the Oilers were the new club on the scene. Over the years, as more players started wearing mouth guards, serious oral injuries became less frequent. Each year, during the pre-season training camp, team dentists conduct regular exams and take impressions for mouth guards. Still, Dr. Eastwood says there’s only so much protective gear can do. “The force of getting hit with a 90-mile (per hour) slapshot—it’s going to break the bones in your face,” he says.
Dr. Eastwood doesn’t often get emotional. But when the Oilers recognized him with a mid-game presentation upon his retirement in 2021, after more than 40 years with the team, he admits his usual stoicism wavered. “They brought me to tears,” he recalls. “It was a big deal, for sure. I was really proud.” But he added that working as a team dentist meant missing many holiday celebrations with his family over the decades.
His introduction to team dentistry came shortly after he graduated with a DDS from the U of A in 1979. The late Dr. Brian Nord, who had been the Oilers dentist when they were still in the WHA, brought him on at his clinic. When the Oilers joined the NHL later that year, the two dentists followed.
Though a loyal Oilers fan, Dr. Eastwood says he viewed the role as simply another job. It was only when he brought a friend into the Oilers dressing room that he realized how special it was. He saw how giddy his friend was after meeting the stars of the era. “It kind of opened my eyes. I thought, ‘Okay, this is a big deal,’” he recalls. “But for me, (the players) were just like anybody else.”
And despite being “tough guys,” some are still anxious when it comes to seeing the dentist. Dr. Eastwood recalls one bruising Oiler in particular, “He was scared stiff. He was just shaking. I said, ‘What I’m doing is nothing. You’re out there getting pounded and beaten and hit with pucks and sticks and elbows.’”
Drs. Eastwood, Kern, Coulombe, and Ushko look forward to the day the Oilers bring home the Stanley Cup. Dr. Ushko anticipates that isn’t far off. Regardless, he vows to remain a die-hard supporter and team dentist, although that’s not actually his dream job. “I would rather have been a player on the Oilers than a dentist for the Oilers,” he grins. “So, this is the next best thing.”
— This article appears in the November/December edition of the ADA Connection