Are You Tough Enough?

We all know that hockey players are a tough bunch of rink rats that play through injuries that would result in sending the average human to the local shelter to be humanely euthanized.

I love the next day interviews when a guy shows up in the broadcasting booth in a suit, sporting a fiberglass cast and all he says about the injury is “I didn’t know it was broken.”

While our guys are playing through dislocations, inhaled teeth, concussions, sprains, split lips, busted noses all the while trying to shake off the blood dripping into their eyes, baseball players are landing on the 15-day DL for sneezing.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Because of a sneeze:

{from The San Diego Union-Tribune} “…While walking down some steps at Coors Field in Denver last Friday, Mat Latos stifled a sneeze. That aborted sneeze led to pain in Latos’ side that landed the 22-year-old pitcher on the 15-day disabled list Thursday … Latos didn’t know exactly what his injury is, although he said it was ‘against my ribs … Is it a big deal?  That depends on how it goes and how long I’ll miss. It’s sore. I am not going to lie.’”

If that doesn’t qualify as ‘embellishment’, I don’t know what does.

So I say to everyone, watch hockey, it’ll toughen you up.