Wilderness Walk: Middleton Earns Gold

CHL Update: While Bankier scored on Friday night, he was an ugly -3. Last night he added a couple of apples and finished +2. The Master's hit was scary, he was leaning awkwardly having just gotten rid of the puck and is hit hard, off his skates and lands pretty much just at the base of the boards. He remained motionless until the stretcher came out.

Here is the update from Kamloops:

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The Blazers statement:

Following his injury during the May 28th Memorial Cup game, Kyle Masters was removed from the ice by stretcher. He was fully awake and moving all of his extremities and was transported to the Royal Inland Hospital emergency department for further evaluation.

Thank you to the Blazers and Peterborough's medical staff and BCAS paramedics for their medical care on the ice.

Looks like he may have avoided serious injury, but if I'm the doctors, I'm MRIing his back to make sure there aren't stress fractures. 

Not to make light of any of this, but the article by Luke Sims on the size of the Wild defense is directly related to this news. Luke's article came out before the incident. While Masters was clearly off balance when hit, and likely any size defender gets wiped out, they don't get sent flying through the air like Masters was sent, larger defenders have the beef to absorb the hit and the damage would be minimal. 

If you look at the hit, think about Addison as you watch it. There was not a lot of video of Addison getting crushed behind the play, as most people were watching the puck. But, you can see several times where he just gets pinballed around and has to collect himself for a couple of moments due to the impact. Now, when you project the smaller D we have drafted up to the higher leagues, you can see, if they don't have the weight, accidents get amplified and injuries can happen. 

By the way, Kamloops won 10-2, beating the former Hunter Jones team, the Peterborough Petes.