Puck In The Mouth: It Hurts On So Many Levels

If you tempt fate often enough, it's inevitable that you'll end up getting kicked in the teeth. Or taking a hockey puck there.

A while back, the face shield on my hockey helmet broke. I've been wearing a full-shield ever since I received a stick induced gash on my face playing roller hockey about seven years ago. A lot of blood, a trip to the emergency room, stitches, and a scar were enough to convince me that playing without a full-shield was fool hardy. So I planned to replace my recently broken shield at the soonest available opportunity. Soonest available opportunity being whenever I got around to ordering a replacement on the internet. In the meantime, I played a few times sans shield without incident.

I happened to mention this to JB the other day and he advised me that he had an extra shield available that he was not planning on using. Yesterday, he handed off said shield to me at our Thanksgiving gathering. By the time we got home last night I was exhausted after a grueling day of eating, drinking, and being merry. My plans called for a little pick up hockey on Friday morning to work off the rust built up after not skating for a few weeks due to my recent traveling. Before I hit the sack last night, I briefly considered the idea of installing the shield. Nah, I thought, I'll skate without one tomorrow and put it on before my game on Sunday.

So this morning it goes down like this. Guy on the other team is in the corner with the puck. I skate toward him with my stick extended so I can block any attempted pass. He does attempt to pass and I do block it with my stick. Actually it was more of a deflection with the puck leaving the ice and drilling me on the upper lip.

Pain. Blood. Teeth? At first, I thought I lost my front teeth. But I couldn't feel 'em loose in my mouth and I couldn't see 'em on the ice either. I went to the bench and grabbed a towel to stem the flow of blood. One of the other guys who was playing was a doctor. He checked my mouth and recommended that I get stitches. And see a dentist. My teeth weren't gone. But a few had been pushed further back in my mouth by the impact of the hard rubber biscuit. And one had been fractured.

The nice thing about the emergency room in the morning is that you don't have to deal with the usual late night suspects or the long wait times. I was able to get right in and received excellent care from the crew at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. Wife and son met me there and Nathaniel was quite interested in watching dad get sutured up.

After being injected with enough Novocain to make an elephant comfortably numb, I received three stitches on the outside of the lip and five on the inside. And a prescription for Percocet. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get the good stuff that got Favre hooked (Vicodin), but, after having your upper lip rearranged by a hockey puck, any painkiller is a good painkiller.

Target wasn't particularly crowded considering it's "Black Friday" (a light snowfall may have dampened shoppers enthusiasm) and I was able to score my Perc without undue hassle. I also picked up "The Simpson's" Season Six DVD since it was priced at a mere eighteen bones and I figured I might have significant couch time over the next few days. My appearance drew more than few odd stares at Target, enough so that I was tempted to go John Merrick on them and start screaming, "I am not an animal! I am a human being! I...am...a man!"

I'm at home now and the 'Cain is beginning to wear off. It'll soon be time to start riding the Perc Train. More later (including a pic) if time and consciousness permits.