Player Takes Skate to the Face with Miraculous Results

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TJ Tucker
March 20, 2024 (6:19 PM)

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A player in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) took a skate to the face during a playoffs game, but managed to walk away unscathed.

If you believe in miracles, we might have one right here. A player in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) somehow walked away without a mark after clearly taking an opponent's skate in the face.

Oskarshamn IK and HV71 are involved in a series where the winner will get to stay in the SHL for 2024-25, while the loser will be relegated to HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden's second-tier pro league. The teams played game three of the series today, and the first period brought about a very scary incident.

Oskarshamn's Viktor Lodin decided to put a hit HV71's Victor Sjoholm. The hit pasted Sjoholm to the end boards, with his foot coming up in the process and catching Lodin's teammate Nick Olesen in the face. If you watch the video, you can actually see Sjoholm's skate go underneath Olesen's visor striking him on the bridge of the nose. Sjoholm's skate hit with enough force that it sends Olesen's head backwards. Miraculously, after falling to the ice, Olesen got right back up without even a scratch.

"Nice tackle by Lodin and damn how lucky that the HV skate doesn't cut open Olesen's whole face."

Olesen was asked about the incident after the first period, and said he realizes just how lucky he was.

"It happens so fast that I didn't realize what happened first. It was the tip of the skate that hit my face and not the blade.

I was lucky. Very, very lucky."

Skate cuts in hockey became a major topic of conversation in the 2023-24 hockey season after former NHLer Adam Johnson was cut on the neck by an opponent's blade during a game in Britain. Sadly, he passed away.