I had never seen a hockey player, up close. The scars, stitches, butterfly bandages, missing teeth, black and blue skin patches was astounding.
Gnarly.
I guess they all wait until the end of their playing career to get new chompers. I have notices a couple of Stars that are missing their front teeth. It must have happened in practice.
I’m reminded of the Peanuts special, I forget which, where they’re ice skating, and Snoopy pulls out the hockey gear and does a routine and at the end smiles, and has some missing teeth.
I enjoyed watching the Stars back in the day, when they were actually good, but I still think it’s a shame what happened to Mike Modano. Imagine having a displaced shoulder blade for the rest of your life.
Then again, he has his millions and trophy wife to comfort him, so what do I know?
Made me cringe
Is that Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita?
Interesting article. I attended hockey games in college, but haven’t followed it since then, even though I live in Hurricanes territory.
(let me know if you want on or off the ping list)
Um, I don’t think most of the missing teeth and scars are damage from pucks. Mostly due to fights. A really sickening sport in my opinion because they let the players square off- and it’s what the crowds are really there to see.
Ick.
Hahahahaha what an awesome picture!
Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, if I am not mistaken!!!!
Sigh. I stopped watching some years ago, the game became too boring to watch, people tell me I should watch again as some of the rules changes got rid of all the clutch and grab play which slowed it down.
Heh, I came to hockey late when I was 17 years old, didn’t skate, but they needed a goalie and I used to catch in baseball, so I thought I could do it.
My friends were playing street hockey, so they gave me a first base mitt, a regular hockey glove for the other hand with two squares of paneling with styrofoam between them held onto the glove with telephone wire as a blocker, and put a rolled up carpet sample up each leg of my dungarees as leg pads. A real goalie stick completed the ensemble.
I stood in front of a metal shed, and they were at the end of the driveway, taking slapshots at me with a hard, razor edged plastic street hockey puck which they placed on top of a small piece of paneling so as to give it a bit more...speed.
I stood there ready, no facemask, no cup, no chest or arm protection, and one of my buddies wound up and fired a steaming slapshot my way. It sailed at me with such speed I didn’t have time to react, and it hit my thigh just above my knee where there was no padding. Boy, did that sting, and I hobbled around in little circles groaning and grimacing for about 30 seconds, then decided to try again.
Another friend slapped a second sizzling shot, and it came up the driveway and hit me...in exactly the same spot above the same knee. The pain was exquisite, in much the way striking a thumb with a hammer on two consecutive blows is exquisite. I repeated the little dance of pain, with louder groaning and voluptuous cussing, creasing my face into an even more contorted grimace if that is possible. But after walking it off, I stepped back in front of the shed, and set myself.
The third shot came in with a little less velocity, not a slapshot, but a wrist shot, and I was able to get my makeshift blocker on it. The puck deflected off, came up and hit me in the cheek just below my glasses and sent them flying into the air.
I threw the gloves and stick down on the ground, yanked the rolled up carpet samples out of my jeans, and yelled out “F*** THIS!” at the top of my lungs. That was it for my first day as a hockey player.
But...when winter rolled around and the pond froze over, they needed a goalie for pond hockey. The memory of that first day had faded, and instead of just sitting watching, I figured I could at least play, and did better. I joined the Navy, and there wasn’t much hockey to be had, but when I came home on leave for Christmas, there was always a game and I joined in as the sacrificial goalie.
As any hockey player knows, the only thing worse than a sacrificial goalie is no goalie, so...I played. When I got out of the Navy and began going to college and working evenings at a nursing home across the street from a hockey rink, one of my former band chaperones (who played goalie in men’s leagues and pickup leagues until he was in his mid-sixties) called me one night to ask if I wanted to borrow his equipment and fill in on his team, since he couldn’t play that night.
I began to borrow his equipment more often, I ended up buying his old beat up stuff, and played in more and more pickup games and ended up playing goalie for about 15 more years until I ripped my knee up playing volleyball and couldn’t play anymore.
Now everyone wears cages, but back then, people had only been wearing helmets for a few years, nobody wore cages except for us goalies, and I saw my share of stitches on other faces and chicklets on the ice.
Sigh. I don’t miss getting home at 2:00 AM and getting up at 5:00 AM to go to work, doing that sometimes two or three nights a week, but...I sure did enjoy playing hockey. As a goalie, I was not allowed to skip out on a game without a stand in. You do that, people don’t forgive you. So many nights, after a long day at work, I would be exhausted, laying on the couch, trying to close my eyes until 11:00 PM to drive to the rink. And the nights I wasn’t playing...the phone would ring, and a desperate guy would try to convince you to stand in for their goalie who couldn’t make it, and with a groan, I would agree, because...if you love hockey, you feel bad for guys who have to play with a net turned around. So you go. I sure don’t miss that.
But I miss that sport.
And I love that picture. Something about hockey players...those missing teeth always made grown men look like mischievous little boys...:)
And sometimes, those grown men were just that...mischievous little boys!
My daughter was at a game last season behind the glass about the blue line, a puck went 1’ feet or so in the air, crossed the glass and hit her forehead on the way down. 5 stitches and just the speed of gravity from 10’. The game pucks are frozen before play. Hard as rocks and sharp edged.
My dentist is a former hockey teammate of mine. How cool is that? LOL.
During a game, an NHL team dentist's main priorities are triage, improvisation and speed: Stop the bleeding, yank or file down any dangerous edges and numb the pain so the player can return to the ice as quickly as possible.
