Injuries.
Every athlete suffers through injuries, leading to time away from the sport and requiring adjustments to be made to their everyday lives.
Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi gave that notion a whole new meaning with a chaotic and painful 2022-23 season.
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Tinordi didn't just suffer one injury, or even two: he suffered three separate injuries during the season, one of which required him to get over 100 stitches on the inside and outside of his mouth.
On the latest Blackhawks Talk Podcast, Tinordi sat down with Pat Boyle to discuss his injury-riddle season and how he was able to push through and finish it with his skates laced and uniform on.
The first setback came just two months into the season on Dec. 1, when the Blackhawks placed Tinordi on injured reserve with a hip ailment.
While he did return, the injury was something that stuck with him until the end of the season.
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“I think it’s something that I think he knew coming into the season with that injury and it’s just been recurring,” Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said to NBC Sports Chicago’s Blackhawks Insider Charlie Roumeliotis in March. “At some point, it either gets enough rest in the summer or it gets fixed. I don’t know what it is but this would probably be the summer to do that.
Tinordi returned to the lineup earlier than expected in December, but his battle was far from over.
On Dec. 9, seconds into the first shift of the game, Tinordi took an inadvertent skate to his jaw area from Winnipeg Jets forward Michael Eyssimont.
Although he received between 50 and 100 stitches inside and outside his mouth, Tinordi returned to the bench and finished the game.
“In the moment, I obviously felt something hit my jaw, but I thought it was just the boot or his ankle or something like that,” Tinordi told NBC Sports Chicago in December 2022. “You don’t feel the pain from it. You don’t feel anything. It just felt like something hit my jaw, and I wasn’t sure.”
Just nine days later, and in his first game playing without the protective shield, Tinordi took a slapshot straight to the face and immediately went to the locker room.
“It was more shock than anything at first,” Tinordi told NBC Sports Chicago in January. “ I didn’t know what was going on. I felt some teeth not in the position they were supposed to be in and I knew I was in some trouble a little bit.”
Tinordi spent the night in the hospital and underwent surgery to repair multiple facial fractures. Since his face was broken in three places, he had to have two plates put in, and his jaw was wired shut for five weeks.
Amid a streak of what he called “freak incidents,” Tinordi still considers himself lucky.
“They were big things, and that was unfortunate,” Tinordi told Boyle on the podcast. “I've been playing hockey a long time. I've never gotten hit in the face with a skate. I've never gotten hit in the face of the parkway to that extent. And so I guess that's the way I was looking at. It was those are kind of freak incidents that don't happen very often, and you just got to kind of roll with it.”
So how did Tinordi stay positive, even with all the injuries and while losing 15 pounds due to the inability to eat solid food?
“I think the support staff I had from my family, from the rink, from our chef, you know, she was cooking me soups and stuff,” Tinordi said. “My fridge was full of soups.I just put them right in the blender that whole time. So, I mean, it was great.”
Tinordi will be back with the Blackhawks in the 2023-24 campaign, signing a one-year contract in April. He says that the help of those within the organization will stick with him after a year of adversity and pain.
“There's good people around this organization and it makes you feel (better),” he said. “It's hard to be down and negative when you’ve got so many good people helping you out.”