Playing through injuries

NHL players skate injured a lot. It happens particularly often in the playoffs, for obvious reasons--but even during the regular season we're always hearing about guys playing with injuries and making them worse, and I'm sure there are way more that we don't ever hear about. A lot of hockey fans seem to think athletes who do this are admirably tough; I and most of the folks I hang out with think they're pretty dumb.

Well, I used to. Something happened today that shook up my perspective on this a bit. I was practicing eagle turns, a move Sidney Crosby uses during games a lot--I read this Justin Bourne article about it a while back and resolved to master it myself. Which, today, I did! I'd been able to execute the motion in a very slow and wobbly fashion for some time, but today something clicked and all of a sudden I could do it. Smooth and solid, every time.

If you've ever acquired a skill after eight months of trying, you know how awesome I felt. I was on top of the fucking world. I spent maybe twenty minutes just doing eagle turns in little figure-eights in the corner of the rink, quietly glowing with pride. I could do Sidney Crosby's thing! A thing Justin Bourne said he couldn't do! I could do it! I could probably do anything! Hell, maybe I could do a one-foot stop on my right foot now! I'd only been able to do it on my left foot last week, but pfft, last week my eagle turns had been awkward like a newborn deer. Last week was ancient history. I was a new woman.

As it turned out, I could not yet do a one-foot stop on my right foot, and in my excessive confidence I wound up wiping out pretty bad. My leg twisted inward and most of the impact hit the inside of my knee, and it hurt so much that for a few seconds I was worried I'd managed to really damage myself. But even while I was thinking that maybe something was sprained or broken, I was already hauling myself back upright.

In retrospect, that surprises me a lot. I'd have thought I would have the sense to give myself a moment to recover from the initial pain and determine how badly I was hurt before trying to stand up again, especially given that I wasn't in a high-traffic area. But no, in that moment my only priority was getting back up and finding out whether I could still skate. And in reflecting on that, I feel like I have a better understanding of NHL players who play through injuries.

I had been assuming that they did it for external reasons--because it's expected of them, because they're afraid of being judged as weak. And maybe that's true. I don't know what's going on in their heads, and a high-pressure televised professional game is a lot different from a tumble on a public rink. But I know that when I got up and took a stride on a knee I thought might be broken, I wasn't thinking about whether anyone was looking at me. That behavior was completely internally motivated. Mastering the eagle turn left me with a deep, adrenaline-fueled certainty that I can do this, that I am capable, that skating is a part of me; and the possibility of being hurt left me with an urgent need to ensure that all that was still true. I was riding a high of competence, and I had to cling to that.

I still don't think anyone should skate on an injury. I don't think I should have tried to skate on mine so quickly, though it turned out not to be too severe. Pushing through injuries doesn't make logical sense. But... well, I think maybe I get it.