What We Can Learn From Ballerinas and Hockey Players

By Dr. W. Gifford Jones

March 26, 1995

Which writing assignment would I prefer? To study injuries to hockey players or ballet dancers? It would take a mere second to select the Toronto Maple Leafs. But this week I got lucky and killed two birds with one stone. What did I learn, and how can we all benefit from this experience?

Dr. Darrell Ogilvie-Harris is Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Toronto. But he's also physician to both the Toronto Maple Leafs and The National Ballet of Canada. It's a rare morning that we don't talk about hockey while scrubbing for surgery every week. My one claim to fame is that we work in adjoining operating rooms every Thursday!

One morning I commented, "I imagine hockey players are tougher than ballerinas". But my colleague smiled and wondered how I'd like to fly through the air every night and land on my big toe!

He continued. "During one performance a ballerina landed on a pin that had dropped off another dancer. The pin penetrated through the entire big toe. Nevertheless she still finished her routine without a flinch!"

Dr Ogilvie-Harris says dancers look more fragile and graceful. But they're every bit as athletic as hockey players. They too push their bodies to the limit.

They also suffer acute injuries like hockey players. During a dance some develop stress fractures. And on one occasion a male dancer dislocated his shoulder, dropped the ballerina who landed on her knee and fractured her knee cap.

Chronic injuries plague both. For hockey players the knee is their Waterloo. That's what ended the career of hockey great Bobbie Orr. For dancers it's their feet.

Dr. Ogilvie-Harris made a shocking discovery a few years ago. He decided to examine the feet of all the ballerinas and male dancers. He wanted to see if he could determine which type of foot was more likely to develop pain.

To his surprise he found they were all in pain! And that ballet dancers always expected to be in pain. They explained it was simply a part of the profession.

The careers of male dancers usually end because of disk lesions in their backs. This is the result of the tremendous load they must carry lifting ballerinas along with hyperextension of the back. Ogilvie Harris stresses there are more similarities than differences between hockey players and dancers.

Stoicism and determination sets them apart from other mortals. Both want to get back into top shape following an injury. If asked to do four hours of therapy a day they willingly do it. They wouldn't last long without this sheer grit.

But there is a subtle difference. For instance, hockey players, after ligamentous injury, can re-build their strength to 90 per cent normal and return to the game.

Ballerinas need a full range of movement. Any loss of motion of their joints make them look awkward. That little bend backwards in the knee makes them look beautiful.

How does Ogilvie-Harris decide during a game that a player is fit to continue after a blow to the head? He says the quickest way is to ask as question such as who is playing? The truly disoriented will say it Chicago when it's Montreal. Or won't know the score.

Some situations are tough to assess. Once he asked a hockey player to count backwards in seven's from 100. He got to 93 and couldn't figure out the next one. Then the coach commented, "He can't do that when he's normal!"

Foreign hockey players pose another problem. Ogilvie-Harris was recently checking a Russian hockey player for double vision. He put up five fingers to ask how many? The Russian player started waving!

Ogilvie-Harris, like other team doctors have one fear, missing an injury. It's easy to do when hockey players are in supreme condition and often don't complain of pain.

Are there any gay hockey players? Ogilvie-Harris says no one knows. But he adds this interesting observation. In basketball if a player gets blood on his uniform he has to change. And blood on the court is quickly washed off with bleach. Not so in hockey.

Hockey is also the only sport where players are allowed to fight with bare hands. And when players are punching one another there's nothing to stop blood from being transmitted. Ogilvie™Harris smiled and added, "Maybe if players thought someone was gay they wouldn't fight him".

It's time we all added a bit of this grit to our own lives. And stopped running to doctors for every minor ache and pain. And when it takes time and effort to get back into shape, do it.

W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com

My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:

Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1

Pre-2008 articles by Gifford Jones

Canada Free Press, CFP Editor Judi McLeod