EDMONTON — My favorite story about pain and hockey played out over 40 years ago in a Hartford hotel room. There an old defenceman named Lee Fogolin — a second generation NHL pain-tolerator — was having an issue with a tooth that was abscessing underneath a cap.
It was game day, and back in 1981, they didn’t rush dentists to the Ritz Carlton at the whim of some player with a toothache. Fogolin wanted to play that night against the Whalers, and he needed that cap removed — stat!
So he grabbed a curtain hook off the hotel drapes, sidled up to the bathroom mirror, opened wide, and used the sharp end of the metal hook to pry that cap off of his aching tooth. Look it up kids: a curtain hook.
They wouldn’t let you…