Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop lost his two front teeth late in the second period against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre.
It has been well documented through the ages that hockey players are some of the toughest people in the athletic world. Hell, back in the “old days” they didn’t even play with helmets. Now, something like that would seem all kinds of crazy.
At some point, you have to think to yourself, “Exactly how much can one person handle and still keep moving forward?” Well, this is a question that could easily be posed to Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop.
Bishop was between the pipes for the Lightning as they did battle with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Heading into the final moments of the second period, the Lightning were beating the Maple Leafs 4-0.
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning were trying to play the puck out of the zone when it was intercepted by Maple Leafs defenseman Roman Polak. Polak passed the puck forward to Peter Holland who took the shot on Bishop.
Thankfully for Lightning fans, Bishop made the save. Unfortunately for Ben Bishop, he made the save with his face. To make matters worse, it cost him more than a killer headache.
Seconds after making the stop, Bishop crumbles to the ground with his glove over his face. The whistle is blown and soon you can see Bishop simply shaking his head in disbelief.
The 29-year-old netminder looked down and there were his two front teeth just chilling on the ice. (No pun intended.)
In most cases, you would assume a player would leave the ice for the remainder of the period and get some medical attention. Of course, Bishop is not exactly what one would consider as normal.
Bishop talks with Tampa Bay Lightning Head Athletic Trainer Tom Mulligan for a moment and then takes his place between the pipes for the remainder of the period. Unfortunately, other than giving him something for the pain, there really wasn’t a whole lot the medical staff could do for him on the spot.
At the end of the day, Bishop would remain in the net for the remainder of the game and the Lightning would go on to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-3, picking up their 2nd road win of the season.
After the game, Ben Bishop spoke to the media. Despite the pain in his mouth, and probably his head as a whole, he never had any intentions of leaving the ice. He described the pain as more of a throbbing.
Having had plenty of dental procedures done ourselves, we’re fairly certain he was downplaying the pain a little bit, but as we said before, hockey players are some of the toughest athletes in the world. In fact, some hockey fans would say he’s a real hockey player now that he’s lost a couple of teeth.
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Tomorrow night, the Tampa Bay Lightning push forward on their current six-game road trip. The Lightning will make a stop at the Bell Centre on Thursday night to take on the Montreal Canadiens. There is quite a bit of history between those two teams, so it will be interesting to see how things play out on the ice.