Injuries are a hockey fact of life. By the time an NHL season has worn on for a few months, virtually everyone is fighting through some aches and pains. Many will play through them, while others have to miss games.
Of course, some players seem to find themselves in that latter group more often than others. Whether it's due to a reckless playing style, a refusal to play through pain, or just plain old bad luck, some players just always seem to be hurt. And once a player has earned a reputation for being injury prone, it can be a hard one to shake.
So if you're an NHL player wondering if you're hurt too often, read on for some possible signs that you may deserve the dreaded “injury prone” label.
- The two-paragraph section of the CBA dealing with the injured reserve mentions you by name fourteen times.
- Your hometown fans have booed Daniel Alfredsson ever since he mocked you by pretending to throw a broken femur into the stands.
- Every time your coach sends you onto the ice for a shift, the referee immediately gives him a match penalty for intent to injure.
- When he's angry at you, Zdeno Chara only bothers to guide you towards the general vicinity of the metal stanchion, instead of intentionally slamming you face-first into it.
- Every time somebody goes to hit you near the bench, the players and coaches all pull plastic sheeting over their heads like they're at a Gallagher show.
- Your scouting report describes you as “a chandelier, if it was made out of eggshells and papier-m€ché by Rick DiPietro.”
- When you were a kid, your parents used to always tell you, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will only result in you being out day to day with a sprained medial collateral ligament.”
- Any time somebody throws a body check against you in a game of NHL 13 it makes your head bleed. Not your character's—yours.
- Instead of Don Cherry constantly calling you a flamingo on Coach's Corner because you lift one leg while blocking a shot, Don Cherry constantly calls you a flamingo on Coach's Corner because your knees bend the wrong way.
- While many players over the years have been mockingly described as being allergic to body contact, you're the only one who isn't allowed into the corners unless you're wearing your clip-on EpiPen pouch.
- Any time Raffi Torres skates towards you to deliver a potentially career-ending head shot, he pauses at the last second and then mumbles, “Oh, I guess somebody must have already got here.”
- You spend every off-day visiting with as many children as possible at the local hospital, but eventually they all have to leave and go home.
- An ambulance follows you twenty-four hours a day, making you the first NHL player to have a red light flashing behind you at all times who wasn't a Maple Leafs goalie.
- Other players: often criticized for attempting to fight without first removing their helmet and visor. You: often criticized for attempting to fight without first removing your protective plastic bubble.
- Professional baseball players refer to you as “the toughest person we have ever seen.”