Has there been a sudden leap in skate sharpening technology in the past few years? Over the last couple of seasons skate blade related injuries seem to be on the rise. We saw the horrible injury to Richard Zednik when a skate blade cut his throat, Kevin Bieksa had most of a season wiped out when a skate lacerated his calf, and now Teemu Selanne has suffered what appears to be a serious leg injury after his own skate blade sliced him as he went awkwardly into the boards. This isn’t even the first recent skate blade injury to a Ducks’ player. Corey Perry missed 15 games in last year’s regular season and playoffs after he was cut. Of course these recent injuries aren’t the first in NHL history. Anybody who has been watching hockey for a while remembers the scary incident when Clint Malarchuk had his throat cut by Steve Tuttle’s skate, and Donald Audette suffered severe damage to his wrist when his arm was slashed. However, the past few years it seems to be happening more and more frequently .Of course it could be just a statistical anomaly, but if the trend continues the NHL will be taking a hard look at player protection.
You can check out the video footage of what happened below. It isn’t until the mid-point of the video that you can actually see what happened. I won’t warn the squeamish since it really isn’t gory footage, and if you are that squeamish then you shouldn’t be hitting the play button on a video titled, Selanne Suffers Freakish Skate Cut Injury 🙂
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