It is fairly normal for hockey players to lose teeth. It is less common for hockey goalies to be among them, though. They're the only guys in the sport who will wear full facial protection for the entirety of their hockey careers.
However, as Ben Bishop of the Tampa Bay Lightning found out Tuesday night, sometimes the goalie mask doesn't completely do its job.
During the second period of the Lightning's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Bishop caught a high, hard shot from Peter Holland right off his goalie cage. He immediately went down to the ice. The initial fear when that happens is that the goalie dealt with some head trauma and might need to come out, but that wasn't the case. Bishop was dealing with something much stranger.
When the trainer came over to take a look at Bishop, the netminder looked up and revealed that his front teeth were missing.
How hard was that shot to have rattled his mask enough to knock out his teeth? Considering how well those masks tend to work, this is something you almost never see.
Bishop had a shutout going at the time. So he certainly wasn't going to come out of the game. Teammate Brian Boyle was nice enough to pick up at least one of his goaltender's dislodged teeth after Bishop shook the remaining particles out of his mask.
ok last gif of this. it was just so weird pic.twitter.com/4fjmA6ZcXy
— Stephanie (@myregularface) October 26, 2016
Not that he probably ever cared to, but Bishop got a small taste of what the goalies of yesteryear went through on the regular. It's amazing it took those guys so long to finally put masks on, though Bishop is probably going to be wondering what the heck happened to his.
