Sharks Gameday: Ironic Injuries

As you may have heard, at the end of the Bruins-Capitals game on Thursday night the safety netting hanging at one end of the rink fell and injured two fans. Puck Daddy has the whole story, as well as a graphic picture that might make it more difficult to laugh at the rest of this post, so maybe don't look at it until later unless you are confident that you are dead inside.

Okay, so...the safety netting seriously injured two people. The SAFETY netting, which hangs in arenas for purposes of PROTECTING FANS, fell down and sent a couple of folks to the hospital.

Jesus.

Let's go to Wikipedia:

Situational irony

This is a relatively modern use of the term, and describes a sharp discrepancy between the expected result and actual results in a certain situation.

[...]

For example:

When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, all of his shots initially missed the President; however, a bullet ricocheted off the bullet-proof Presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the chest. Thus, a vehicle made to protect the President from gunfire instead directed gunfire to the president.^[26][27]

Hahaha, I hadn't ever heard that about Reagan. That's hilarious.

I did some research, and I found out that this wasn't the first case of an ironic injury in the NHL. Here are a few others that you may not have heard about:

• 1959: Jacques Plante wore an experimental goalie mask. The straps that held it to his face were too tight, and ended up cutting off the circulation to his brain. The resultant floppiness of his limbs dramatically improved his goaltending, and led to the development of the butterfly style.

• 1965: After the NHL banned the use of performance-enhancing stimulant pills, Gordie Howe fell asleep during a game while skating on a breakaway and broke his leg crashing into the net.

• 1980: The introduction of mandatory helmets ended up making old-style NHL fights, in which players took turns headbutting each other in the face, much more dangerous.

• 1990: After the NHL began issuing mouthguards made by a disreputable manufacturing company based in Yugoslavia, dozens of players fell ill with lead poisoning.
  

• 1993: Mario Lemieux's shin guards gave him cancer.

• 2002: Seven players died from visor cuts.

• 2009: Raffi Torres somehow delivered a devastating blow to his own mouth with his own elbow pad, and lost three teeth as a result.

• 2013: Brent Burns ended up with a beard infested with pubic lice after putting his protective cup on wrong.

Safety first! Death later.

Sharks Gameday

Prediction: It isn't technically ironic that the Canadiens, the most accomplished team in NHL history, are now pretty crappy -- but it is definitely amusing. Sharks win 5-2, and Sidney Crosby finishes -5.

Video Gamery: My 18th-favorite video game is The Longest Journey. It really isn't the kind of game that looks impressive in any Youtube videos, so you're going to have to trust me on this one.