Bruins Prospect Jake DeBrusk Had A Horrific Testicular Injury

Hockey teams are notoriously vague about players’ injuries. They’re usually categorized as “upper-body” or “lower-body,” with scant details beyond that. Boston Bruins draft pick Jake DeBrusk suffered a lower-body injury while playing for the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos on Oct. 30, and today, he revealed what actually happened: He needed surgery after a slapshot caught him in the testicles.

DeBrusk, who was 18 when the injury occurred, told WEEI’s DJ Bean that the puck caused one of his testicles to swell to the size of a tennis ball:

“It was the scariest thing, looking down and it’s just like, ‘Oh my god. What’s going to happen?’” DeBrusk said in a conversation with WEEI.com. “You’re 18 years old and you’re thinking to yourself whether you’re ever going to have kids, things like that. I freaked out.”

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“The only thing I’ll remember about it is just the pain,” he said. “That’s the worst part about the injury, is how much it hurt, because I tried to get up. I went down and I didn’t know what happened, because you don’t feel it in that area. It goes up to your mid-section, so I thought my appendix burst or something, because I couldn’t move. It was an unbelievable feeling. I’ll never forget it. I tried to get up and I had to crawl to the bench. I had to crawl and they were like, ‘Get up, get up.’ I was like, ‘I can’t get up.’”

DeBrusk said he felt the pain for two hours before the medication kicked in. He needed surgery for the injury, and fainted before it even began:

“I fainted right before the procedure and I was in [a hospital chair] and I was like, ‘How’d it go?’ and they were like, ‘We haven’t started yet,”’ he recalled.

DeBrusk says his balls are fine now.

[ WEEI]