Cheers guys!
Yeah Blue we've already had a few injuries at training. I used to skate with a girl's team as a trainer for a while before I set my men's league up, and one of the top girl players cracked me properly in the ribs under my armpit. Took three months for it to stop hurting! Pretty sure I broke or at least fractured it, but I never went to the doc because there's nowt they can really do about it, so I just went to work the next day as usual. I think that's why it took so long to heal, but meh!
I have now invested in a G-Form compression shirt, it's got padded panels on the ribs under the arms, the sternum and the shoulders. The pads are flexible until impact, then they stiffen up, absorb 90% of the shock, and then return to their previous flexible state. Looked like a good thing for me, as I was hammered in both sides last night!
'Shred, you may joke, but them ladies are light-years ahead of us blokes! :D They skate faster and hit harder, but then they've been doing it for a few years already. We've started getting guys coming along who used to play street Hockey, so they're really nimble on their skates but also used to a thorough barrage of brutality, which works really well for us, heh.
We have a chap (one of the ex-Hockey players) who a few months ago lost a fight between his Bicycle and a car, and he ended up basically "de-gloving" part of his calf. He went through a really long and arduous recovery process, and now has a patch of leg where there is skin but hardly any muscle or nerve endings. He has to walk with a cane, but when he straps on his skates, it's like he was never away, and remains probably the best technical skater on our team. Bit of a legend! Apparently he finds it easier to skate than walk because it uses different muscle-groups. :?
Broken Coccyx is freaking painful! There is no position you can sit, lay or stand in that is even remotely comfortable when that happens, so that lady is a proper trooper, especially if she's back up on skates again. Takes a lot of guts to carry on after a bad injury! :x