Boston Bruins General Hospital: A satirical short story
By Joe Mello
Due to all the injuries faced by this year’s Boston Bruins, the Injured Reserve is looking pretty full nowadays. Here’s a (fictional) inside look at the painful season thus far.
Let me give you some background. I’m a semi professional hockey player, and in practice recently, I suffered an injury to my left knee. After some research, I saw that the Boston Bruins General Hospital has been taking a multitude of patients. I checked myself in with the receptionist, Mr. Neely, and found myself in the waiting room.
Out of two large emergency room doors walks a man with the name Cassidy across his scrubs.
“How are you man? We’re ready for you now.” He shakes my hand, and I get up and follow him into the hospital.
“What’s been bothering you? Upper body or lower?” I respond “Actually sir, it’s been my knee-”
He cuts me off, and talking through his teeth says “We can’t say specifically what the injury is. Y’know, makes it harder on the reporters and the other teams to speculate things.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I nod. Right away, I’m blown away by the size of this place. Cassidy notices my mouth dropped wide open.
“We’ve been through a lot since the Bruins started playing this season. Knees, jaws, broken legs, bumps, bruises, even diverticulitis.”
I look over to a common area where some patients are watching the Boston Celtics game on television. Bruins forwards Anders Bjork, Brad Marchand, David Backes, and defenseman Adam McQuaid are all there, sitting on a couch together.
“They’ve all had a rough go of it lately. We’re really missing a lot of talent right now. Typically, we’d be watching our games together, but it’s just too hard to watch right now.” Cassidy presses his fingers against his brow, and sighs.
Just then, a loudspeaker booms as an ambulance arrives. Wheeled in on a stretcher, it’s Bruins defennseman Torey Krug.
“What’s his status?” Cassidy asks, running over to the injured blueliner.
“Doubtful!”
Cassidy follows the Michigan State alum out of the hallway and into a separate room. I’m left walking, or rather limping, around the hallways. I find a spacious wall, covered in plaques. It reads: BRUINS ACTIVE ROSTER. A nurse comes in, and takes Torey’s plaque off the wall, and places it on top of many other plaques near her desk.
I hear commotion, a man yelling and screaming after what sounds like he scored a goal. After checking it out, forward Matt Beleskey is shooting pucks on a half ice arena. He looks none the worse for wear. I further inspect the ice rink. I see a banner hanging, with the name of the rink in bold letters: HEALTHY SCRATCH ICE ARENA.
Ah. That explains it. I return back to the common room where the guys were watching Kyrie Irving and the Celtics young guns beat the Golden State Warriors.
Marchand looks at his phone.
“Guys! We’re tied in Los Angeles right now! Turn it on.”
Bjork flips the channel. Sure enough, the Bruins are tied 1-1 with the Kings. Late in the second, the guys are on the power play. Defenseman Zdeno Chara, friend of the IR program, blasts a slapshot into the back of the net.
“A lead!’ cries out McQuaid. “I almost forgot what that’s like!”
Laughter and playful punches ensue. McQuaid gets a little to into the punching, and accidentally knocks out one of his teammates.
I suppose a win in Los Angeles will help this team out greatly. They’ve had a cold streak to say the least lately. With a much needed off day in California before tomorrow, hopefully some of these guys can get healthy, or at least close to it.