The left leg that held up the not-fully-mended bones lay elevated, encompassed in clear wrapping tape up in the Greenberg Ice Pavilion bleachers.

For more than three months now it has attended practice faithfully, limping into the stands, practically helpless, wondering how in the world it could have shattered in so many places.

Its owner is Greg Schwind.

"I jammed my ankle up my leg. So if you can picture a bone and another bone jamming up into it, so it just split out," Schwind said.

Progress is often a slow process, and few people know that better than Icers junior forward, Schwind.

It's been 103 days since Schwind last competed in a game for the Icers.

Nowadays, that extended off-ice time is normally reserved for locked-out NHL players.

For Schwind, playing in only 11 games in his first season with the Icers doesn't begin to detail his disappointment.

After transferring from Morrisville Junior College during the offseason, Schwind settled into his role with the Icers faster than expected.

He earned the right to center the Icers second line, and, in just his second home game, recorded a hat trick -- in one period.

"Losing him hurt us more than everyone's willing to admit," assistant coach Chris Schmale said.

"He's missed over half the season, [and] he's still 11th or 12th in scoring on our team."

In early November, Schwind suffered a horrific leg injury in a game at Rhode Island, breaking it in two separate places.

At the time, Icers coach Joe Battista and his staff thought there was an outside chance that Schwind could return toward the end of this season.

Three months and 17 days later, that slither of hope has turned into a next-to-impossible chance he'll return this season, considering he just stopped using crutches 10 days ago.

What's left to do?

"The way I tried to look at it [is], I played hockey for 17 years and this is the only real major injury I've ever had that's kept me out of playing for weeks at a time," Schwind said.

Some way to even the stakes, Schwind supposes.

*****

Weekends when the Icers play road games are when Schwind feels separated the most.

It's pointless for him to travel with the team, so he listens to the broadcast on the radio.

"I guess you don't really realize that road trips, especially, aren't just about hockey. Just like the comradeship [you miss] when you're not going, it's no fun anymore," Schwind said.

When he transferred, Schwind knew only goaltender Scott Blackman, and, at the time, Blackman was playing at the Division II level for the Ice Lions. Schwind's untimely injury put a halt to relationships he hoped of establishing with his teammates.

This week is senior week for the Icers, and Schwind has grown accustomed to the transition from playing on the ice to watching from the stands. Now walking again -- gingerly, but still walking -- Schwind's left leg has lost a ton of muscle.

Everyday he spends more than two hours rehabbing with the team's training staff.

He says he has a different outlook on the game of hockey -- a viewpoint he feels will pay off in the future.

"I wanna coach when I get older, so even though it's a bad experience, it's a good experience to be out here watching from a coach's standpoint," Schwind said.

As practice winds down, Schwind watches as one Icer takes a few extra strides.

It's senior Greg Windsor, who will play Saturday in his last home game, against Washington & Jefferson on senior day.

Schwind doesn't know if next season will be his last as an Icer. Some time this spring, he'll write a letter to the ACHA hoping it will extend his redshirt another season.

For now, though, Greg smiles at the thought of the chance he'll get to travel with the team when it competes in nationals the first week in March.

"We [told] Greg, 'If you can't compete in Nationals, you're going to be a big part of this for the next year or two and you gotta get healthy for Fall of 2005'," Schmale said. Slowly but surely, he's working on it.

Practice is now over. The tape on his left leg slowly and grudgingly begins to come off.

"I get down sometimes but you gotta stay positive or else you're not helping yourself," Schwind said.

It'll be another month and a half before Schwind begins skating again. And two months before he plays hockey.

Until then, the wrapping jobs will do.