Brent Burns, a defender with the San Jose Sharks, frequently forgets something while packing for a road trip: his veneers.
He said, “I don’t wear them often.” I normally put them somewhere secure, forget where I put them, then find them a few months later, usually in a drawer.
Burns, a cheerful man, claimed that three of his natural teeth are missing and that a fourth is “hanging on by a thread.” He is holding out hope that it will not go missing with his other Chiclets.
‘I need that one for corn on the cob,’ Burns said with a gap-filled smile.
For better or worse, missing teeth have long been linked with hard-nosed hockey. Some players, like Burns, even accepted their missing teeth as a badge of honor or rite of passage.
Bobby Clarke, Ken Daneyko, Stan Mikita, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Hull all had smiles known for what’s not there. In the game that decided the Western Conference final in 2011 between Chicago and San Jose, Duncan Keith had seven teeth knocked out by a puck, and he joked: “You’ve got to leave it all on the ice.”
Jaromir Jagr, 43, who is the oldest player in the NHL, requested a new set of front teeth in December after having his teeth knocked out by an opponent’s stick.
After being struck in the face by Ottawa Senator Alex Chiasson, the Florida Panthers player realized something was missing from his mouth.
After the game he joked about what happened, and tweeted: ‘Dear Santa, can I get a new teeth for Christmas 🙂 it’s going to be tough to eat-good -at least I don’t get fat :)))’
Less than two months before his 44th birthday, his teeth were broken.
There is much more interest in preserving the original teeth than there was in the 1980s, when Kings coach Darryl Sutter recalls seeing players write their numbers on coffee cups, place their teeth in the cups, and set the cups on a shelf before games. However, many casual fans might assume all players are missing a few teeth, which is untrue.
‘The joke was switching teeth around,’ Sutter said with a sly grin.
Although they weren’t his natural choppers, Hall of Famer Chris Pronger has excellent choppers, and Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien can magically insert and remove teeth with immaculate appearance.
Hockey players will lose teeth despite the league’s increased focus on player safety and technological advancements in equipment.
The only option to assist players in maintaining their dental health is to make them wear full-cage masks while wearing their helmets. And that won’t happen soon or at all, at least not in the NHL.
A player’s chances of avoiding a concussion may increase if he decides to wear a mouth guard. Nevertheless, a puck, a stick, the ice, or a check into the boards may still cause damage to his pearly teeth.
‘I’ve pulled teeth out of mouth guards,’ Detroit Red Wings equipment manager Paul Boyer said. ‘They’re not designed to keep the teeth in the mouth.’
When a player is struck in the mouth during a game with a stick or puck, they are just seconds away from receiving expert care from a team dentist and possibly an oral surgeon. The Los Angeles Kings and the Nashville Predators are two clubs that have dental chairs in their venues.
‘We’ve got full coverage, too,’ Byfuglien cracked.
According to Predators general manager David Poile, one of the NHL’s innovative initiatives is the provision of dental care. Poile recalled that he doesn’t even remember the Atlanta Flames having a dentist when he worked as an administrative assistant for the organization in the early 1970s.
Pronger continued, “An oral surgeon who also performs plastic surgery is ideal.”
I possessed a good set of teeth. I currently have fresh ones. You probably can’t tell that I had 50 stitches here and 27 stitches there, but I also cracked my jaw.
Drew Doughty, a defense player for the Los Angeles Kings, does not wear his cosmetic tooth, which he refers to as “a flipper,” unlike Byfuglien since he claims it exacerbates his lisp. Before losing one tooth last year and another early this season, Doughty had all of them.
One was jarred out of his mouth by a high stick, while the other was knocked out by a puck. According to Doughty, the issues are to blame for his top lip tucking under the left side of his bottom lip.
It has a lot of things piled up within, so it tends to be lethargic, he said.
Doughty also admits that, to a certain extent, he has neglected to use a mouth guard to protect his teeth and brain.
He said, “I’ve been told I should a lot of times.” The doctors on my team want me to wear one. I don’t really think the mouth guard would help in those scenarios because I had two teeth knocked out: one by a puck in the face and one by a high stick. But a mouth guard absolutely helps with concussions, in my opinion. Even though I probably need to be wearing one, I haven’t my entire life, so I’m not going to start now.