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Hockey Players

There’s a price for sports greatness, measured in a lifetime of pain. Hockey veterans tell you what it’s like. Facing facts:

1. A slap shot puck flies at a teeth-shattering 90 mph.
2. NHL players skate faster than 20 mph.
3. There were 1,251 NHL injuries in ’02–’03. Last year, 2005-06? Zero.

They call Ted Lindsay Scarface, Hall of Fame left winger, Detroit (’44–’57, ’64–’65), Chicago (’57–’60), and he’s earned the name: No athlete has ever taken more stitches—over 500 in his head alone, he claims. “You get some cocoa butter and vitamin E oil and you can rub a lot of those scars away,” Lindsay laughs. “In fact, I'm better-looking now than I was back then…which ain’t very good!”

In junior hockey, a couple of Toronto scouts came to see Lindsay play, but he’d already gone to the hospital: An opponent’s skate blade had sliced through his calf muscle, leaving him writhing on the ice in a pool of blood. The scouts signed his teammate instead, so Lindsay joined the Detroit Red Wings, where he played with Sid Abel and Gordie Howe and won four Stanley Cups in six years. “That injury changed my whole life,” he says, “and I’m not complaining.”

Although a perennial all-star (11 times) and top-10 scorer (eight times), “all anybody ever talks about is the fighting,” admits the man opponents called Terrible Ted. One of the toughest players in NHL history, the 5'8", 160-pound Lindsay collected 1,808 penalty minutes over his career. “I was hitting everybody and getting hit by everybody and fighting everybody, and everybody was fighting me,” Lindsay says.

In a game in the 1952–53 season, Lindsay broke his foot: “It was just a fracture; luckily everything was still in place.” But with the playoffs starting, he wasn’t about to sit. “I put my skate on, and that was my splint,” Lindsay explains. “I got over the pain during warmups. Once my system got going, I kind of forgot about it. Didn't feel much pain again till after the game when I was trying to take the damn skate off.”

Until recently, Lindsay still played in old-timer’s games, slamming opponents into the boards at age 77. “I just hung ’em up two years ago,” Lindsay says. “I had surgery on my back and they put in a metal plate. If I can’t body check, why skate? It was a wonderful, wonderful life…and the damn thing was too short!”

Ted’s face Over his career Lindsay took more than 500 stitches in his head. His nose has been broken so frequently that the cartilage is gone. Head Shot One time Lindsay was clobbered over the head by Montreal defenseman Butch Bouchard. “He didn’t mean it,”says Lindsay. “I was pivoting along the boards, very low. Butch swung his stick and got me just over the left ear. No stitches, no concussion—I’ve got too thick a skull!” But it was enough to put him in the hospital. The Kindest Cut “I’d already taken 12 or 14 stitches under my right eye,” Lindsay tells us. “We were playing in Boston, and I made the mistake of getting the stitches out before the game. I got hit with an elbow under the same eye and opened it up all over again. I can’t remember who it was, but it was a good elbow.” A Nose For Hockey Lindsay’s nose has been broken so many times from “a lot of sticks, a lot of pucks, and some pretty good fists,” that there’s no cartilage left. “I only hope I gave more than I took. I believe I kept the ledger pretty even,” he says. “I never intentionally cut anyone, but I did everything I could to help us win.” A Broken Glass Smile A hockey player doesn’t leave the game—he has the trainer stitch him up on the bench so he can get back on the ice. No anesthetic. “It never hurt because your face was still numb from taking the punch, so you could take the needle,” Lindsay says. “A few stitches and nature takes care of the rest.”

It’s a beautiful day. You step outside to enjoy the sun and a day of mowing the lawn, going for a run, maybe playing a little basketball. Simple, right? Not for Steve Yzerman, Center and captain of the Detroit Red Wings (1983–present). The 21-year NHL veteran has to wear sunglasses whenever he goes outside—daylight still burns, the result of a slap shot that hit him in the face last spring, smashing his orbital bone. Running and basketball are also out of the question, since Yzerman obliterated his right knee against a goal post in 1988. After five operations, all the cartilage in his knee is gone. If he plays soccer with his daughters, he kicks with his left foot to keep the bones in his right knee from grinding against each other. When he goes to bed at night, he sleeps on his side and rests his head on a special pillow designed to help relieve the constant pain in his neck since he herniated a disc lifting weights a decade ago. (He suffered repeated “stingers” before doctors removed the ruined disc entirely and fused the remaining vertebrae together.)

And that’s just the off-season. “This hurts, that hurts,” Yzerman says, dismissing his maladies. “I probably feel a lot older than I am, but it’s just a matter of dealing with aggravating, nagging things. You’re used to dealing with daily pain, so it’s not really a big deal.”

His eyesight is improving, but Yzerman’s knee and neck will continue crumbling for the rest of his life. Somehow he’s found a bright side. “Skating is not a high-impact activity for knees. If I played a sport that involved running, I’d have been done at least five years ago. If I take care of myself, when I retire I’ll still be able to do everything I want to do: snow-ski, water-ski, golf. I was a lousy golfer before my injuries, and now I’m still lousy. You have to grit your teeth and bear it. At the end of the day, it’ll all be worth it.”

Steve’s knee His ruptured posterior cruciate ligament was never repaired. His knee has no cartilage. In 2002 docs sawed through Yzerman’s tibia and inserted a wedge to realign the joint.

Whenever Dave Shand, Journeyman defenseman, Atlanta Flames (’76–’80), Toronto Maple Leafs (’80–’81, ’82–’83), Washington Capitals (’83–’85), assorted minor league teams, goes to a new doctor, the receptionist asks him to list his injuries and surgeries. “I start at my toes,” Shand says, “and work my way up.” The list is so long he has to use the back of the form. “Broke my feet seven times,” he says. “Broke both ankles. Four knee surgeries. Multiple hip pointers. Six or seven broken ribs. Two surgeries on my left elbow. Two surgeries on my right shoulder, including plates that are still in there. Then I get to my head. About 250 stitches all told. Broke my nose six times—there’s no bone left in that thing. Broke my jaw twice. Broke my orbital cavity once. Oh, and seven or eight concussions,” he laughs. “I can’t remember exactly how many.”

The doctor invariably asks if Shand’s been in a few car accidents. “No,” Shand answers. “Just 13 years of pro hockey.” None of this was part of the big-league dreams of a 19-year-old kid from Cold Lake, Alberta, the first-round pick of the Atlanta (now Calgary) Flames in 1976. But after four years with the Flames, Shand was shipped to Toronto, Washington, and five minor league teams before finishing his career in Austria. “I was never the number one defenseman on any team,” Shand explains. “So I couldn’t afford to let someone else take my spot. If it was a choice between sitting out a couple of games and healing or taking a needle and playing, I took the needle. In Washington I played with future Hall of Fame defensemen Scott Stevens, Rod Langway, and Larry Murphy. If they got hurt, they sat out a few games. If I sat out, Kevin Hatcher was waiting to take my spot. I knew how good he was, and I just couldn’t give them an excuse to take me out of the lineup.”

In 1989 Shand couldn’t stomach another summer of gut-wrenching conditioning sessions and hung up his skates. Although his hockey paychecks stopped coming in years ago—at his peak he made about $100,000 a year—Shand’s body is still paying the price: “Cortisone shots corrode your joints,” Shand says. “So now I’m 48 and I have to have two hip replacements in the next two years. And I don’t think I’m done, either.”

Shand describes his hips as a “nonstop toothache. You feel it all the time, but there’s nothing you can do about it.” He takes three Vicodins each night before bed, lies on his side with a heating pad on his right hip and three pillows between his legs, and still only manages three or four hours of sleep most nights. (As for sex, Shand says, “Like most former players, you have no choice: You’re on the bottom, and you hope your wife’s enthusiastic.”) When he wakes up he takes a high-strength ibuprofen and a Vioxx (now conveniently recalled) to ease the pain and swelling, then uses a 9-iron as a cane to go down the stairs.

Through all the pain, Shand’s maintained an unshakable sense of humor: “I went to the wedding of another old player’s kid, and it was hilarious. Some guys hobble left, some hobble right, some less, some more—but we all hobble. But if that’s the price you pay for the joy of playing the game, I don’t mind paying it.”

Dave’s skull His orbital bone was shattered. His nose was broken six times. Jaw broken twice. 250 total stitches (plus about eight concussions.)

Willing And Disabled

This guy comes to play even when all his parts didn’t. Willie O’Ree, as if being the NHL’s first black player was not tough enough, O’Ree did it with one working eye. Hit with a puck in the right peeper, he endured not only racist opponents but constant checking due to his massive blind spot. Getting hit in the face with a slap shot—a frozen rubber puck traveling at over 100 mph— is like having half a brick dropped on your head from a height of about 300 feet.

John U. Bacon, Charles Coxe, Sean Cunningham, and Steve Mazzucchi. The Toll. . December 20054.

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