Joe Thornton Played Playoffs on Torn MCL and ACL

April 24, 2017, 4:03pm

Hockey players’ ability to play while injured is so legendary that it turned into a meme. And yet, we still believe there must be limits to how much pain hockey players can deal with before needing to sit out a game or two in order to heal like normal humans. But the 2016-17 San Jose Sharks were apparently determined to prove us wrong once again.

DeBoer says Thornton was playing with torn MCL & torn ACL and ‘basically his knee was floating’ Marleau admitted he played with broken thumb
— Mark Purdy (@MercPurdy)April 24, 2017

Joe Thornton played an average of almost 19 minutes per game through four games of the postseason with a torn ACL and MCL—an injury which forces most athletes to sit out entire seasons—forward Tomáš Hertl had a broken foot, Patrick Marleau had a broken thumb, and Joonas Donskoi played with a separated shoulder on two separate occasions during the regular season.

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This surely proves that hockey fans are the toughest people on the planet. And if that doesn’t convince you, the memes comparing Thornton to Kevin Durant, or Blake Griffin, will make it incontrovertible.