To recognize that head injuries were as essential a part of football as they are of boxing would be to erase the fine distinction on which the game's respectability rested.
So much of my career was affected by injuries. Not just the well documented surgery, but the hamstring pulls and other things. Injuries hit me hard, and they always seemed to come at key times.
Fatigue is one thing. Injuries are another. But if you are just tired because you just practiced - well, I'm not having that.
Illness, mechanicals, and injuries is not something you can 100% avoid; you can only try to limit the risk.
I always felt capable of playing at the highest level. The biggest disappointment is that I've had a lot of injuries.
It's unfair to think that we can do what we do with the intensity that we do it and expect injuries to not happen.
I've separated my shoulder and my collarbone; I've messed up my knee a million times. I've broken my foot in several places. I've broken my toe a bunch, broken my nose a couple of times, and had a bunch of other annoying little injuries, like turf toe and arthritis and tendonitis. It's part of the game.
Injuries are a huge thing for skating. I think skating is a very unnatural sport for the body, very tough on the joints.
I've been dealing with injuries my whole life, so it takes a different type of guy to go out there and play injured and know something's wrong.
When I was in the army, there were four times that I was wounded. I also got more than 30 wounds on my body, and my injuries were ranked on the second rank of invalids. The first rank is the most severe. So, that means that I had lost more than 60 per cent of working capability.
It's not like I'm not constantly dealing with a litany of injuries that I have myself. If it's not one thing, it's another thing, but I've just been able to keep rolling.