Yes, another Check, Please! Sideblog

This is a great way to ask a sports med question. We’re looking at something that seems to happen in a certain population, and then we’re going to look around for what all might affect them that makes them like that.

First, let’s look each other in the eye or not if we don’t like doing that, and all admit that hockey rinks are not that cold.

A big sheet of ice will keep itself from melting for a long time. Temperature control in a rink is more about managing the characteristics of the ice surface, and skaters want it to be pretty warm. We’re able to glide over ice when the contact of the skate creates a minuscule layer of liquid water on top of the ice, reducing friction. That happens best at just below freezing.

NHL rinks keep the direct ice surface at 24 to 26 F (about -4 C). Standing on the ice, the air around your head will be noticeably warmer than down by your feet: the air above the ice gets steadily warmer towards a building temperature about 63 F (17 C). Humidity is the biggest variable between cities, and the issue is usually high humidity, rather than dryness: most have 10-12 dehumidifiers to maintain about 30 percent.

Yes, that may be colder than you’re used to. But they’re not inimical-to-human-life cold. Most people where professional hockey players come from spend our lives breathing colder and dryer air than that, and we’re fine. We’re not hacking and sniffing all over the place.

So what makes hockey players different?

Dehydration

Hockey is a sweaty, sweaty game. However much you are imagining: it’s more.

“It’s a population most people don’t think of having hydration issues, because they play in the cold. But they have a lot of risk factors. They’re playing at high intensity, wear a lot of gear and can be at risk for dehydration, especially in the southeast, where rinks can get very humid.”

—Dawn Emerson, University of Kansas

Skaters lose an average of 1.5 liters of fluid in a game, and some lose 2 to 3 liters. Goalies lose about 3 liters every practice. In hockey it’s very easy to lose track of that loss, because your equipment soaks it up and you won’t appear or even feel especially sweaty.

Dehydration is defined as the loss of body water at a rate greater than your body can replace it, as well as by your electrolyte balance. (Opinion of this blog: you, personally, are not dehydrated. Please don’t do whatever Cure or Challenge you’re about to do.)

About 30% of players who were well-hydrated will become dehydrated over the course of a game or practice, but it’s also been found that about 75% of players show up at the rink for already under-hydrated (International Coaches Conference during the IIHF World Championships, Dr. Lawrence Spriet)

“Part of the reason we think they were always dehydrated is it’s hard to drink that much fluid.” —Emerson

Your body does not want to drink a liter of water at once because it knows that can really fuck up your cardiac and brain function. It’s impractical and dangerous to try re-hydrate entirely after a game.

It’s common practice to weigh player’s pads before and after games to measure their water loss, and we work by the 3% rule: during practice, you have to drink enough to keep your total water loss at or below 3% of your body weight. That’s why every player has their gatorade bottle and they’re supposed to be emptying it a couple times over.

Jersey

Devils

:) :) :)

‘gay and confused’ is basically my default state, so you’re in the right place. You’re also in luck because the Stanley Cup Playoffs are about to start in like five days! So, here’s how to get into hockey:

Peruse some hockey content on tumblr. Try my hockey stuff tag, or check out @andrebearakovsky @stevenstamkos @jaythebeagle and lots of other wonderful hockey blogs

Pick a team! Any team! For your own sake, let it be one that’s actually in the playoffs this year. Look up bunches of stuff about your new team.

Find a source for game streams. The playoffs are usually livestreamed for free on the cbc website, and it’s not hard to find streams of any game on the nhlstreams subreddit.

Watch a game.

Be really confused.

Google a bunch of questions, go on r/hockey and read the commentary, scream questions at hockey tumblr people until you kind of, sort of start to figure out what’s going on.

Watch more games. Start to get weirdly kind of invested in these ridiculous hockey playing dumb idiots.

It’s too late.

Brian McNally recounts an Ovechkin and Backstrom moment he witnessed from eight years ago exactly.

So last night, a real-life feel-good sports movie took place in Chicago. That fantasy that every small-town, amateur athlete/dancer/singer has? The one where the Big Star goes down, the coach/director/choreographer points at them and says YOU’RE GOING ON? That happened last night to a 36 year old accountant and beer-league goalie named Scott Foster, who, for 14 minutes, played goalie for the Chicago Blackhawks. Once upon a time, Foster had big time NHL dreams, like every kid who plays hockey. He got as far as the Western Ontario Hockey League, where he played two years as goalie…in 2005. Then he had to get real, give up his dreams of NHL stardom, and move on to a regular life. Last night, he got to live his dream.

Quick primer on NHL goalies: teams always dress two, a primary and a backup. Most teams have three or possibly four goalies in their own system, between the NHL club roster and the AHL club roster. But sometimes there is also what’s called an EBUG, an emergency back-up goalie, which is sort of a freelance all-purpose safety net provided by the home team and is available to either of the teams if they somehow lose both of their actual goalies. They are usually a local minor-league or amateur goalie. They bring their own equipment, sometimes get to hang out with the team a little, and that’s it. Most of them do it for the lolz and to watch the game for free.

Last night, the EBUG provided by the Hawks was Scott Foster. He’d done it before. Sit in the press box, watch the game, go home. One-day contract. They often don’t even get paid, although sometimes the team gives them fifty bucks for gas and parking.

So last night, the following planets aligned to make all this happen: Corey Crawford, the Hawks’ primary goalie and a two-time Vezina trophy winner, was already hurt and wouldn’t be playing. This meant that their secondary goalie, Anton Forsberg, became their primary while Crawford is out, and their third-string goalie, Collin Delia, became the backup. But then Forsberg got hurt JUST before the game (playing warm-up soccer, no less - most teams do that to loosen up before game time). This meant that Delia had to start the game. Forsberg is an experienced NHL goalie. This was Delia’s first NHL game.

The minute Forsberg got hurt, this already became a pretty big night for EBUG Foster. Because the team has to have two goalies ready to play (in the event the primary is injured), Foster would actually have to get into his gear and dress for the game and sit on the bench. The EBUG usually doesn’t do that. They just have to be in the arena, in street clothes. The Hawks’ equipment manager was probably scrambling to get his name on a blank jersey before puck drop.  

A few minutes into the third period, Delia got cramps and had to leave the ice. (an EBUG can only be sent in if the primary goalie is ejected or injured - they can’t relieve a goalie who’s pulled for too many goals allowed, for example).

This meant that Scott Foster would be going in. The beer-league accountant, who came to the arena expecting to have a hot dog and watch the game, was about to get in the net and play in the NHL.

So he got in the net, having never played on NHL ice…or even AHL or ECHL ice…before in his life. He finished out the game, playing for fourteen minutes. Against a team heading for the Stanley Cup playoffs that includes Patrick Laine, the #2 goal-scorer in the entire league. He faced seven shots and stopped them all, some of them damn good saves - one of them against Laine himself. Lucky for him the Hawks were up 6-2 so it wasn’t exactly a nailbiter - and the game itself was irrelevant - but who cares? He was named first star of the game and the crowd and team both ecstatically cheered him, because who doesn’t love a regular joe getting to play in the NHL for one night?

Please enjoy this highlight video. It’ll make your day.

1. a gay player almost came out, called a press conference and was ready to go through with it until 2 hours before when he decided he wasn’t comfortable with it.

2. two players on the same team one time went to a gay bar not knowing the other was there and they made eye contact and pretended they both just thought it was a normal bar

3. the nhl had a gay rights activist and public speaker talk with the gay players in the NHL (without outing them) as a way to share their stories with someone who could understand.

4. players have said that having a gay player in the locker room actually improves team relations between everyone and promotes a healthier environment

🦅 6, 🇨🇦 4

🚨 Kuznetsov (22), 🍎 Carlson, 🍏 Backstrom 🚨 Wilson (12), 🍎 Backstrom 🚨 Wilson (13), 🍎 Backstrom, 🍏 Burakovsky 🚨 Beagle (7), 🍎 Orlov, 🍏 Chiasson 🚨 Kuznetsov (23), 🍎 Backstrom, 🍏 Carlson 🚨 Oshie (17), 🍎 Jerabek, 🍏 Burakovsky

🥅 Grubauer 13/16