Why you HAVE to love hockey players

This isn't the first example of a hockey player rebounding from a brutal hit, and it won't be the last, but it gives you a little insight into what playing for the Stanley Cup will bring out in a man.

Detroit's Johan Franzen took this hit in Saturday's game against Phoenix. It's a clean hit, but he appears to slip just as he's being hit, and he flies into the boards face-first. You'll see the hit from several angles in this video...


Franzen wasn't on the bench for the start of the second period, and the NBC announcers were speculating (as did the CBC guys in the video) that he was probably undergoing the new mandatory concussion testing, in which you spend 15 minutes in a "quiet room" and are then examined by doctors for concussions symptoms.

Not the case. Moments into the second period, Franzen came out the tunnel and onto the Detroit bench, drawing a double-take from coach Mike Babcock. Turns out that all Franzen was doing was having 23 stitches put in his face so that he could get back in the game. In NBC's coverage, you could see Babcock asking the trainer if he could put a face shield on Franzen's helmet to protect the fresh stitches. The trainer tells Babcock that Franzen didn't want one.

So back on the ice he went, looking like this:



and had nine minutes of ice time through the last two periods. Monday night he had 18:02 of ice time and scored a goal in Game Three. And we get another example of why hockey players are the toughest athletes in the world.