Due For Some Good Luck
Eli 13.3 is referring to this as the auto-thumbs up:
First off, it's not broken.
In hockey, players are flying on and off the bench constantly. There's a door at each end of the bench, and usually someone is assigned to open and close the door, which makes it easier for players to get on and off the ice quickly. Players aren't supposed to touch the door.
In games where Eli isn't in goal, he charts shots and runs the door for the defensemen.
Saturday, he was running the door and one of the defensemen--in a moment of insanity--grabbed the door and closed it. On his thumb.
In the locker room, I was almost certain it was broken. It looked very, very bad. A trip to the emergency room, though, confirmed that there was no break. They said 1-2 weeks, entirely based on how much pain he can stand.
His thumb is black and blue, and he's still wearing the splint (taking it off intermittently to move his thumb as much as he can), but it could have been worse.
This has been a tough season so far. He's played lights out in almost every game, but his team is getting outshot, on average, about 40-15. That means the puck is in his zone for 75% of the game.
I always tell him that great goalies have to have two qualities: confidence and resilience. Having one without the other isn't enough. This is clearly a resilience season, and he knows that, but it doesn't make it any easier.
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