From this morning’s New York Times profile of hockey’s unheralded corps of linesmen, comes this horrifying anecdote about veteran linesman Pat Dapuzzo, who took a skate to the face during a Rangers/Flyers game earlier this month, essentially wrecking the lower part of his face and ending his career.
On Feb. 9, 2008, in a game between the Rangers and the Flyers in Philadelphia, the veteran linesman Pat Dapuzzo was pinned between two players at the blue line. Dapuzzo had jumped to avoid a collision between Philadelphia forward Steve Downie and Rangers defenseman Fedor Tyutin. But Tyutin upended Downie, whose skate blade slammed into Dapuzzo’s face, slashing it open.
Dapuzzo, 50, who lives in Rutherford, N.J., had planned to retire after the 2008-9 season, but the Flyers-Rangers game turned out to be his last. He sustained broken facial bones and severed nerves, and most of his teeth were knocked out.If you're into this sort of thing, you can watch Dapuzzo's accident here. What's amazing is Dapuzzo gets up and tries to break up a fight about 15 seconds after severing some nerves, breaking a number (as in more than one) of bones in his face and getting his teeth knocked out.
That's tough, man, stevedore tough. “There are highs and lows,” Dapuzzo deadpanned, while presumably supping whiskey from a hollowed-out rebarb straw. “I must have really gotten smoked with that kick in the face.”
A lot of readers have requested I post more about hockey (Ed. Note: I'm lying). So, in recognition of Dapuzzo's badassery, here's a bonus clip of badass-in-arms Alexander Ovechkin's ridiculous goal against the Montreal Canadians.
