“And I just - I like my face, and I just didn’t want to have it broken.”īoogaard was 24, in his second N.H.L. “I knew sooner or later he would get the better of me,” said Georges Laraque, long considered the toughest man in hockey. Players around the league took notice of the Boogeyman. Surgeons inserted metal plates and a swath of mesh to rebuild the right side of Fedoruk’s face. Seven seconds after their gloves dropped, the damage was done. Trying to avenge a hit that the 6-8 Boogaard had laid on an Anaheim Ducks teammate, Fedoruk chased Boogaard down the ice. Fedoruk, 6 feet 2 and 235 pounds, had built a career as a nuisance and willing combatant. No single punch announced the arrival of a heavyweight enforcer the way it did on Oct. And, in the case of Todd Fedoruk, that fist shattered his face and dropped him to the ice, all while officials and teammates watched, an arena full of hockey fans cheered and Boogaard’s Minnesota Wild teammates banged their sticks against the boards in appreciation. It made them alter their strategy and doubt their fighting acumen. The thought of Boogaard’s right fist kept rival enforcers awake at night. When Boogaard closed his right hand, though, it was a weapon, the most feared in the N.H.L. That hand was, until the end, what the family worried about most with Boogaard. Whenever he opened his right hand, the fingers were bent and the knuckles were fat and bloody with scar tissue, as if rescued a moment too late from a meat grinder. It was a little chunky and sharp in spots and there was a hole there about the size of a fist.” - TODD FEDORUK, former N.H.L. And I felt where it was, and my hand didn’t rub my face normally. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I went straight on the ice.

I was in a bad position and he hit me hard, hardest I’ve ever been hit.

Here i come tougher than knuckles