Almost every prospect in every sport has a great story of triumph to tell when they make it to the next level. Bruins prospect Jake DeBrusk does as well, though he certainly had to overcome quite a bit in the season before he was taken in the 14th overall by Boston last year.
DeBrusk missed some time during the 2015-16 season for the Swift Current Broncos of the Western Hockey League due to an undisclosed lower body injury, and his performance when returned from the mysterious ailment wasn’t meeting expectations either. Hockey injuries are famously kept close to the vest and closely guarded secrets, and now that the injury DeBrusk had to overcome has been revealed, maybe he’ll get some much needed sympathy.
As D.J Bean of WEEI in Boston reports, DeBrusk got hit in the… balls, with a slap shot so hard that it inflamed one of his testes to the size of a tennis ball. Before surgery could even be performed, he fainted at the hospital.
“It was the scariest thing, looking down and it’s just like, ‘Oh my god. What’s going to happen?’” DeBrusk said in a conversation with WEEI.com. “You’re 18 years old and you’re thinking to yourself whether you’re ever going to have kids, things like that. I freaked out.”
The pain of being just tapped in the nuts can be unbearable, even for a few minutes. The thought of taking a 90 mph slap shot right to the family jewels is… well…
“The only thing I’ll remember about it is just the pain,” he said. “That’s the worst part about the injury, is how much it hurt, because I tried to get up. I went down and I didn’t know what happened, because you don’t feel it in that area. It goes up to your mid-section, so I thought my appendix burst or something, because I couldn’t move. It was an unbelievable feeling. I’ll never forget it. I tried to get up and I had to crawl to the bench. I had to crawl and they were like, ‘Get up, get up.’ I was like, ‘I can’t get up.’”
He was wearing a cup that October night when during the first shift of the game he went down to block a shot. Because he wore his equipment loosely, the cup didn’t do much to protect him. Though his teammates were chuckling because that’s what teenagers do, DeBrusk was far more concerned, and legitimately so.
“I couldn’t sit down. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “It was awful.”
[…]
“I fainted right before the procedure and I was in [a hospital chair] and I was like, ‘How’d it go?’ and they were like, ‘We haven’t started yet,”’ he recalled.
Now that the surgery is well and truly behind him, he admits he wasn’t close to being in the physical or mental shape to play. DeBrusk couldn’t walk for a week after the surgery was performed, and now regrets coming back as quickly as he did.
“It was a tough transition. I kind of wish I didn’t come back so early because it doesn’t do great for the stats, that’s for sure,” he said with a laugh. “I probably could have taken about 10 more games off, but we needed a push. … I just couldn’t stand watching hockey.”
DeBrusk could return to Junior next season or play in the AHL as he’s turning 20. But considering what he’s already gone through, the AHL bus rides don’t seem so bad anymore.
[WEEI.com]
