Duncan Keith returns to the ice after losing seven teeth
Monday, May 24th, 2010CHICAGO — The face of hockey, the window to the pain and sacrifice it takes to play this game, is frozen like the Indian head at the center of the United Center floor.
The hair is typical, long and greasy and poking out of the back of an old free hat honoring Tony Esposito. The eyes are languid, the mouth shy, concealing a void where its teeth used to be. The lips are bloodied and unhurried.
Duncan Keith, all beardy and sweaty and hockey humble, is trying to tell a revolving group of reporters why it wasn’t that big of a deal that a puck collided with his face, costing him seven teeth and only a handful of shifts. He’s talking at a whisper, and with a pronounced lisp. He isn’t trying to be humble. This isn’t an act.
About seven minutes of ice time, one for each tooth, elapsed from the time he stumbled off the ice, teeth in his throat, and got shot up with enough numbing medicine to return.
Keith, the Olympian and candidate for the Norris Trophy, wound up skating four more shifts in the second period and 13 in the third as the Blackhawks clinched their first Stanley Cup finals appearance since the days of Roenick and Belfour and Chelios.
“Honestly, I was fine,” Keith said. “You get hit in the teeth, obviously it hurts the gums, but it’s not like you got your jaw smashed in or anything like that. It’s tougher talking, but it’s not as bad as you think it is.” (more…)
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