IStock Photo 4496537 © walik

Ice hockey players have an image of being strong, gallant athletes who bravely overcome adversity, with apparent disregard for bodily harm: modern-day gladiators without teeth. Figure skaters, you might say, cultivate a more refined image. Both are currently on display in Vancouver.

But do they deserve this reputation? Despite some famously gruesome incidents, including the neck-slicing injuries of Clint Malarchuk and Richard Zednik, the odds of an ice hockey player being injured seriously enough to make a trip to the emergency room during a year are only 1 in 119.1. When you compare those odds to those for other competitive sports, like baseball (1 in 89.11) and soccer (1 in 75.05), hockey does not seem quite so dangerous.

One explanation for the lack of overall ice hockey injuries is the amount of protective gear players wear. Unlike participants in many other sports, hockey players are covered nearly head to toe with padding. A study by the British Columbia Injury Research and Prevention Unit (BCIRPU) found that roughly 42% of hockey injuries occur to the head or face, making them the most vulnerable parts of the body. Apparently Glenn Hall did not get that memo: He played a record 502 consecutive games without a goal-tender mask. Despite the protective padding, the upper body and lower body of hockey players are also vulnerable, accounting for 27% and 31% of all injuries, respectively.

The BCIRPU study found in addition that ice hockey injuries become more prevalent as the clock winds down: 42% of them are sustained in the last 5 minutes of each period. The 3rd period is especially brutal, with 47% of injuries taking place in that interval. Forwards fall victim to 63% of injuries, making it the most dangerous position. In nearby hospital beds you will find defensive players, who sustain 33% of injuries. Although goalies face the daunting task of throwing their bodies in front of rock-hard pucks moving at 100-plus miles per hour, goalie is actually the safest position, accounting for only 4% of injuries.

A major difference between hockey and other contact sports, like football, is that there is very minimal contact during hockey practices. According to Steve Clark, an athletic trainer for the Northeastern University men’s hockey team, “The difference in injury risk between practice and games is directly linked to the level of skill of the players and teams. The better and faster players are, the more likely they are to hit the opposing player with more force in a game, and avoid dangerous situations (i.e., contact) in practice.” An annual study by the NCAA backs this up; it has found ice hockey to have one of the lowest injury rates at practice, yet one of the highest injury rates during games. And those injuries can be serious, such as the skull fracture Gordie Howe sustained during the 1950 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The ice is another key factor when comparing hockey injuries to sports played on other surfaces. Clark points out that “skaters glide along the ice for the most part, imparting less repetitive force on bones and joints than more ‘dry-land’ based sports like soccer or basketball.”

This isn’t true, however, for figure skaters, who take more chances with repetitive injuries than hockey players by jumping and twirling while they skate. Mark Ladwig, taking part in the pairs competition in Vancouver, admits to fracturing his eye socket, spiking his own leg, and lacerating his shin. Nearly half of figure skaters report “overuse syndromes” like stress fractures and jumper’s knee.

But hockey players may soon be adding these types of pulled-muscle maladies to their list of more severe injuries—or, at least, the players who appear on the new Canadian reality-TV show Battle of the Blades, which pairs up aggressive hockey players like Tie Domi and Bob Probert with professional figure skaters to perform dance routines.

Now there’s another blow to the hockey-player-as-warrior reputation.