'I get flashbacks' - team-mate on Johnson's death

"I think about it every day, more or less. I get a lot of flashbacks, and they're not very pleasant."

Victor Bjorkung had just played a pass to his Nottingham Panthers team-mate Adam Johnson when he saw tragedy unfold on the ice.

On 28 October last year, during a match against the Sheffield Steelers, Johnson’s neck was cut by a blade and he died later in hospital.

Bjorkung left the team a few weeks later and returned to his native Sweden, traumatised by what he had seen happen to his team-mate, who he called "an unbelievable guy".

In an interview with BBC Sport, he spoke about the lasting impact the incident has had on him and the sport.

He also revealed his views on the need for safer clothing were only strengthened when he suffered his own laceration injury.

Bjorkung has tried to block out a lot of what he witnessed that night at Sheffield's Utilita Arena. But his memory is painfully good.

"I do remember most of it," he says. "Everything happened so fast, and obviously I was on the ice when it happened. It still feels unreal. I do get a lot of flashbacks, and they're not very pleasant."

In the immediate aftermath of 29-year-old Johnson being struck, the players formed a ring around him as medics tried to save him.

"When we saw the injury and we saw what happened, we all knew that it was bad," Bjorkung said.

"We wanted to protect him but also everyone else from seeing what was going on on the ice. He was in a very vulnerable situation at the time. All of us as players, we were vulnerable too, but you have to take your own ego aside and think what is best for the people around you."

When the players returned to the locker room, he said the atmosphere was "quiet", with most of the players crying.

"A lot of the trauma I’ve been dealing with and all my team-mates I've been speaking to after I left, it’s not easy."

What happened to American Johnson was a big enough wake-up call to Bjorkung of the dangers of ice hockey.

And yet he was to have his own potentially catastrophic injury from a blade just a few months later.

It struck his groin area, and cut through his protective gear and skin "like butter".

"I am 31 years old and I hadn’t really thought of it as being that dangerous up until this season," he said.

"I returned to the ice a couple of months after it happened but in a different city, and a different country, and it took me two months before I had my own laceration injury.

"It was only a centimetre or two from the artery in my leg. So I was lucky, and that also took me back a little bit mentally, besides the physical part I had to recover from.

"When you're that close and it happens to you, you think about it more than once before stepping on the ice again."

The International Ice Hockey Federation and the English Ice Hockey Association have made it mandatory for players to wear neck guards following Johnson's death.

However, the Elite Ice Hockey League decided against following suit, instead "strongly encouraging" their use.

Bjorkung wants neck guards to be made mandatory in all ice hockey, but his desire for safer clothing extends beyond protection to necks.

"Obviously if they could make like a full Kevlar undergear, that would be great. I know they have the socks for your achilles, but maybe something that could cover your whole body but not be too uncomfortable to wear."

South Yorkshire Police are still investigating the incident. A man was arrested in November on suspicion of manslaughter and had his bail extended last month.

It is rare for events in a sporting arena to end up in criminal investigations, and Bjorkung said he found it “crazy” when he learned the police were involved in this case.

"The people that were on the ice, and the people in the stands, they know no-one wants to do something like this. It’s such a freak accident and it is so fast. You can watch the video and you can zoom in and you can slow it down and do all these things," he said.

"It’s so easy to sit in the stands and think 'he did that, he did this' but if you watch it in real time you know it's too fast to judge."