CORNER My Hockey Smile
There have always been obvious physical ways to determine which sport or hobby someone has an interest in and that can also determine to which level they are interested. Someone who has an interest in body building will have the muscles on every inch of their body to show how dedicated they are in the gym and a cyclist will have a well developed lower body with huge legs. Swimmers often have powerful shoulders and upper body and if a swimmer is really dedicated they will grow gills and have webbed fingers. You can always tell if someone is of a certain age and is or was a dedicated hockey player. They will have a hockey smile, or a smile that is clearly missing some teeth due to the nature of the game. I am of a certain age, when we wore helmets but no masks or visors (still do) and I am a dedicated hockey player, meaning I have lost a few teeth in my smile to pucks (2), elbows (2), sticks (1) and, believe it or not, microphones (another story).
It seems like I have always worn a denture to mask the loss of teeth to a sport I love. I lost my first hockey tooth when I was 11 from an errant puck. Knocked cleanly out of my head, I picked it up to save it as a souvenir but it was very painfully reinserted and wired/cemented into place by a sadistic poopy-pants dentist the next morning. This episode in a dentist’s chair of torture may explain my lifelong dentophobia, or fear of dentists. It was knocked out again a few days later and that was when I was fitted for a removable smile…er, a partial denture, which only made sense. I could remove it for hockey and still have a smile that the chicks liked.
A few decades and a few additions later, my removable smile finally wore out and needed replacing so, it was time to buck up and pay the piper or at least pay the dentist. Fearing a trip to the torture chamber of horrors (the dentist’s office), I jokingly began a search for a set of good used dentures on the interwwweb and was astonished to discover that it was no joke. There were ads saying that with a Dremel tool and a relining kit “your smile could be good as new.” What was most alarming was the volume of private sales, so I tried to find an extra-large denture to fit my big mouth. Just kidding, but at a cost of about $200, it did make me consider sticking someone else’s plate in my yapper, which reminds me of a story. I played in an old-timers tournament a few years ago and while we were out on the ice our wives sneaked into the dressing room and swapped everyone’s false teeth around the room. After the game during the ritual beer drinking session, players began to put their teeth in and it was only a moment before we were all gagging from the thought of a buddy’s pearly whites in our mouths. What a great prank! Other than being on the wrong end of it, I often tell the funny story.
As I was nervously sitting in the dentist chair and met him for the first time, I may have mentioned that my last three assault charges were against dentists. I truly believe that all my painless sessions were a result of his not being sure if I was joking nor not.
After a month or two of dental vi$it$ and fitting$, I now have a smile that I can cautiously leave in the dressing room for the hockey game…in a secret place of course.