Doctors say hockey players are tougher than other athletes — it’s science
I don’t know how they do it. I really don’t.
Tampa Bay Lightning centre Anthony Cirelli, who takes face-offs for a living, revealed that he had sprained the ligaments that hold the collar bone to the shoulder sometime in the Western final. He played through it. Then he dislocated his other shoulder in the next round. And had his arm stepped on.
He didn’t miss a game in the playoffs.
Valeri Nichushkin, who required a walking boot to get around, played with a broken foot. Nazem Kadri, who couldn’t tie his own skates, played with a broken thumb. Ryan McDonagh played with what was simply described as a “mangled finger.”
Colorado Avalanche goalie Darcy Kuemper, who was almost blinded by a stick that snuck through his mask in the first round, visited an optometrist two-to-three times a day to “re-train his eye.” Ten days later, he was back stopping pucks.
It seemed like everyone either had a knee sprain or a shoulder sprains. Nick Paul unfortunately had both.
Brayden Point suffered a “significant” tear to his quad muscle, which is kind of essential for skating — much less walking — at the end of the first round. The recovery time is usually four-to-six months. He was back playing in 32 days, before tearing it again after a couple of games.
As Lightning head Jon Cooper said in the aftermath of the Stanley Cup final, “what they put themselves through, it’s mind-boggling.”
If it were the regular season, Cooper said “half of their AHL team” would have been called up. But because it was the playoffs, they iced it up, taped it up and for the most part sucked it up in an attempt to win the Stanley Cup.
“A hockey player’s mentality is you play,” said Dr. Mike Prebeg, a consulting chiropractor for the NHLPA, who is based in Toronto. “You play through everything. Do whatever you have to do — tape me up, give me anti-inflammatories and pain killers — just get me out there.”
It’s a bit of mind over matter. A broken thumb hurts. A broken foot hurts like hell. I don’t know what a torn quad feels like, but I imagine it’s not pleasant. At the same time, you’re probably — hopefully? — not causing any more long-term damage by playing through it. You just have to be willing to deal with the pain.
“A quad tear is brutal. There is a chance you can tear it more,” said Prebeg. “A sprained AC joint is kind of the easier thing to play through, because that’s just pain. If you can tolerate the discomfort, you’re probably not making it worse. But you don’t heal. Once you get an injury at the start of the playoffs, you’re not getting better. Improving is next to impossible. You’re just slowly getting worse.”
And worse and worse as the playoffs go on.
Tampa Bay centre Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who didn’t miss a single shift in the playoffs, also played the entire time with a meniscus injury, which likely caused a lot of swelling and soreness in his knee. He did that for 23 games over nearly three long, painful months.
“They’re probably getting medical advice, indicating you can’t do further damage if you play. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know,” said sports psychology doctor Paul Dennis, who spent 20 years as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ player development and mental skills coach.
“I think it just goes to the nature of the individual athlete. Some of them might have similar injuries and not play through it. But the gamers, the ones who have waited their entire life to win a Stanley Cup, some of them will sacrifice anything for it.”
Dennis, who is writing a book on the necessary psychological attributes required for athletes, coaches and parents, defines a gamer as “an athlete who combines physical and mental toughness together.” It’s the difference between someone who scores goals in the regular season but fades in the playoffs, and the unlikely hero who comes out of nowhere and shines when the Stanley Cup is on the line.
Kadri is a gamer. So is Point. And Paul. In fact, the deeper you get in the playoffs, the more gamers you are likely going to find.
“It’s adrenaline,” said Dr. Prebeg. “Honestly, they’re so ramped up they don’t even feel it half the time. If a tiger bites an antelope, it’s not stopping to lick its wound and see what’s wrong. No, it’s going to keep running.”
That might explain how Kadri, who couldn’t use his thumb to tie his own skates, was not only able to hold his stick, but use it in a way where he scored in overtime. Or how Nichushkin was able to get around the ice with a broken foot that was so bruised and swollen that getting it into a skate was even a challenge.
Call it heart, if you want. But it’s part of hockey culture.
It wasn’t long ago that the NHL built an ad campaign around the slogan, “Because it’s the Cup,” a reference to all the sacrifice that goes into winning 16 games at a time when the intensity and physicality are ramped up. Hockey, like football, is a violent sport.
Pain is inevitable. And playing through pain is expected — if not romanticized.
A few years ago, a puck was deflected into Zdeno Chara’s face, breaking the defenceman’s jaw. He didn’t go to the hospital. He put on a full face shield finished the game. Bobby Baun scored the overtime goal in Game 6 of the 1964 Stanley Cup final on a broken leg, before being stretchered off the ice. In 2009, Patrick Sharp speared Nicklas Lidstrom, forcing him to undergo surgery for a torn testicle. The so-called “gamer” was back on the ice in a week for the Stanley Cup final.
“Emotions are contagious,” said Dr. Dennis. “Sometimes a scout will say a player doesn’t have the mental toughness, but he’s skilled. And you draft him anyway and hope that it can be learned by being around the leaders on the team through osmosis.”
In other words, if Kadri was playing through a broken thumb then Nichushkin wasn’t going to miss any games with a broken foot. And if those two were willing to gut it out, then some fourth-liner wasn’t going to complain about something as seemingly trivial as a sprained shoulder or a sore back.
As Kadri said after hoisting the Cup: “Nothing was going to stop me from being out here.”
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