The heat is pressing down on my chest like a heavy wool blanket soaked in boiling water which makes no sense because it is supposed to be winter for hockey fans and yet here we are sweating through our shirts as if we have just run the fifty yard line without shoes on while carrying a stack of frozen burritos from Culver’s. I am sitting at this desk in Mukwonago where everything smells like sawdust and old pennies because that is what happens when you spend twenty years blowing whistles for people who think they are too cool to listen to authority figures or even read the rulebook once before trying to slap shot a goalie square in his face with full force. Auston Matthews got hurt by Radko Gudas today on national television which means I had to watch it while standing up because if you sit down when a star player gets knocked out of the game then your legs go numb and that is bad for blood circulation according to my mother who told me this back in 2003. The hit itself was violent enough to make anyone watching question why we put men on ice skates with sticks made of carbon fiber designed specifically to break bones during a playoff push which suggests the league has completely lost its mind about player safety while simultaneously demanding higher ticket prices for seats that do not guarantee you will see anything but bruises and bad refereeing calls.
I am still reeling from this knee-on-knee collision because I have seen hits like that in high school games back when kids played with less protection than a man walking down the street without pants on yet today it matters more to the NHL than ever before which is confusing logic even for me who usually accepts sports as chaos wrapped up in red tape. Matthews had just scored a goal earlier in the period ending his twelve-game drought so he was riding high like a cowboy jumping over fences on horseback while Gudas saw an opportunity to ruin everything by doing what he does best which is being a physical obstacle that nobody can run around without crashing into and breaking their shin bone for three weeks. This specific injury reminds me of the time I had to officiate a youth tournament in Eau Claire during 2015 where two fourteen year old boys started fighting over who scored last when they were both wearing helmets covered in spider webs from winter storage which ended up with one kid bleeding out on the ice and my heart rate spiking so high that I nearly fainted while holding a clipboard. That feeling is what we get whenever Matthews goes down there but it is different now because he has 27 goals this season which means people are counting his knees like they were assets in a stock market portfolio instead of biological parts of the human body designed to absorb trauma and keep you running around for another game day later on.
Gudas deserves every penalty box minute given to him by the referees today but I also worry about what kind of message this sends to young kids growing up who think hitting is all that matters in hockey without understanding how fragile legs actually are when they do not have muscles built like steel beams from a bridge construction site over Lake Superior. You can tell he meant it because he did not check the knee for safety but went straight into it with full extension which means his brain was already calculating the trajectory of pain before even making contact according to some analysis I saw on Twitter last night that I do not trust anymore since most analysts just watch highlights while eating cheese curds in their pajamas without ever stepping onto a real rink surface. This brings me back to my past takes where we discussed J.J. McCarthy and how the Vikings signed him only for his career potential to be derailed by injuries right when everyone thought he would take over the world of football which is exactly what happens here with Matthews having a goal drought ended just before this hit occurred like fate itself decided not to let anyone win without suffering first in some cosmic game of Russian Roulette.
I remember writing about Caminero and his dominant WBC debut earlier where I said One-Ry Out regarding the potential for future struggles because sometimes success comes too fast for athletes to handle physically until they get knocked off their feet by a bad break or just plain dumb luck which is exactly what Gudas provided here on Thursday night. You want me to tell you why this matters then let me explain that hockey has become too protective now yet we still allow men to hit each other with the intent of causing pain because that is part of the game according to rule 49 section C paragraph B which I have memorized by heart and can recite while sleeping on a cot in the locker room smelling like stale deodorant. The problem lies not in the rules but in how players execute them today where Gudas is simply playing older style hockey using brute force whereas Matthews plays modern speed skating which makes him easier to hit because he is focused too much on getting past defenders instead of protecting his knees from men who treat their bodies like weapons intended for destruction rather than athletic performance.
I am now thinking about Blake again because last week we were talking about how the Brewers might win this year and I told him that if you watch enough hockey then your brain starts to feel fuzzy like watching a movie on VHS tape without proper tracking lines which makes sense why he asked me for advice back in August during those hot summer nights when air conditioning units break down right after everyone buys Kwik Trip iced coffee hoping it will cool them off. The irony is that I am
One-Ry Out.