Photo: Bildbyrån
It is noticeable that Mats Sundin played 1,346 NHL games. His body bears witness to that.
Now he talks about the worst injury he has ever suffered, when he got a puck in his eye and had to have surgery.
“The left eye would forever sit a little lower, I lost ten percent of my vision and was gone for at least a month,” he writes in his new autobiography “Tur och retur – my story”.
Mats Sundin53, is one of Swedish hockey’s greatest players of all time. He has won three WC golds and one Olympic gold with Tre Kronor. In addition, he is the only Swede to score more than 500 goals in the NHL, where he played most of his career for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Worst injury of his career
In his new autobiography “Round trip – my story”, which will be released on 22 October, he and the author tell Amy Stuart about his childhood, upbringing and hockey career. For example, he writes in detail about all the injuries he has suffered. There has been a broken leg, a broken wrist and pucks hitting the forehead and eye.
The worst injury occurred in the 2005/2006 season opener away to the Ottawa Senators, when he received a cleared puck straight into one eye.
“I got down on my knees on the ice and realized I couldn’t see anything in my left eye. It was completely black. I panicked, my pulse raced and I blinked frantically to regain my vision. When the paramedics arrived, his heart was beating hard in his chest,” he writes in the book and goes on to explain how it affected his appearance:
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“The left eye would forever be a little lower, I lost ten percent of my vision and was gone for at least a month. It was the worst injury of my career,” he writes.
– You can see with the eye that it sits a little lower now. They said they could lift it up and operate, but there are so many nerves there. Then there is a risk of getting double vision for the rest of your life. So it had to be, he explains to Sportbladet.
“Don’t let your girlfriend see you”
A few years earlier, in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks in 2000, “Sudden” received a shot straight to the forehead. Blood was spurting in all possible directions and edges. He had 15 stitches in his forehead. The doctor had also managed to pull out a piece of the puck with tweezers. The next day he woke up with two bruises and a swollen forehead.
Two years later, he got a cleared puck on his mouth and started spitting blood on the ice. The occasional tooth came out. The dentist was worried and had to operate on him for two whole days to get all the teeth in order to be root filled and replaced.
“Don’t let your girlfriend see you like this, Mats. Lucky for you I’m a plastic surgeon. The teeth have come up and stuck here. Never seen anything like it. Driven up in the jawbone. If I don’t manage to get this done, you will be unhappy for the rest of your life,” writes Sundin in the book.
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What an incredible career he had, Mats Sundin. And he has suffered a lot of scary injuries.
Funny that you dare and want to offer these anecdotes from your career. It will be exciting to read more about your life.
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