The injuries that came with playing this long. What happened, what came next, and where some of the gear in my bag came from.
Some guy basically slide-tackled me. His left calf went right into mine. Played through the rest of the game and it didn't feel that bad in the moment.
Iced it. No formal treatment.
Could barely walk for the next two days. Severe contusion, nothing structural.
Took a hard elbow to the ribs while running up the boards. The kind of hit that shuts you down for a few weeks.
Couldn't run for a few weeks afterward.
Picked up the Knapper AK5 padded protection undershirt as a base layer and now keep a few in rotation. Honeycomb foam over the torso, spine, and lower back, exactly where you take contact when someone catches you off-balance.
Took a high stick to the face right between my eyes, between the eyebrows. Open gash, bleeding a lot. I was wearing a helmet at the time, which is more than a lot of guys at pickup can say, but the helmet had no visor.
Seven stitches.
Started wearing a Bauer Pro Straight half visor right after and haven't taken it off since. Got used to it quickly and actually enjoy it.
Took a slash on the same left thumb during a breakaway. Still scored the goal. Thought I might have rebroken it for a minute.
Never got an X-ray. Bruised pretty bad for a few days then it was fine.
Probably just a bad bruise, not a true re-injury. Including it because it's part of the timeline.
Got almost tripped during a game and felt something tweak. I think it was my right MCL but honestly couldn't say for certain.
I could run forward okay but lateral cuts hurt. Felt it for about three weeks. Missed a game over it.
Scheduled an appointment with a knee orthopedist. The morning of the appointment, exactly three weeks to the day, I woke up and it felt fine. Funny timing.
Got cross-checked into the boards. Pretty sure the shoulder was dislocated because I felt it pop back in.
No formal treatment.
Ended up dealing with shoulder issues on and off both shoulders for the rest of that season. Annoying injury that lingered.
Went to the slot to shoot. A defender came down to stop the shot and the shaft of his stick caught my left thumb as it was driving forward into the shot. The thumb was going one way and the stick was coming the other. Snapped it.
Surgery to set the thumb and three pins put in. Wore the pins sticking out of my hand for weeks while it healed.
I was wearing low-profile dek hockey gloves at the time, the kind everyone used back then. Almost padded gardening gloves with a little protection on the back of the hand and not much else. Didn't want to go all the way to bulky ice hockey gloves, so I switched to lacrosse gloves and have been on them ever since.
A few items in my bag exist because of these.