The other day we told you about Canucks defenseman Sami Salo tearing his Achilles tendon while playing floor hockey (or rather Floor Ball) this summer. What’s been a bit odd about everything is the lack of details about the injury being offered up by anyone. Salo isn’t discussing it, the Canucks aren’t commenting on matters, and the Vancouver papers are all hunting for anyone to talk about it.
As it turns out, even reports out of Finland, Salo’s home country, are sparse and Canucks blog The White Towel wants to know what’s up with all the secrecy.
Salo has won Olympic silver and bronze representing Finland, but apparently lacks the star appeal of, say, a Steve Nash or Justin Morneau, who if they were to suffer a possible career-ending injury kicking a soccer ball around in the offseason back in B.C. it would be news splashed all over the place.
But a quick scan of the two newspapers from Salo’s hometown of Turku found online, Abo Underrattelser and Turun Sanomat, and the 10 Helsinki papers available online, shows no mention of Salo after the briefest of notices on Friday.
“It’s sad, but Sami’s not big news here,” one Finnish sports reporter said.
The Province tried to contact Salo by phone at his Finnish home, but no one picked up on the other end. It’s understandable the injury-prone D-man doesn’t feel like talking about his 40th injury.
But the Canucks could do a lot more than merely confirm the reports out of Finland before issuing a terse “There will be no further comment from the club or Salo at this time.”
Did the injury occur in June, as the reports say? If so, did the club only find out Friday when local media began calling? Why all the secrecy? Is Salo’s career kaput?
At the very least, The White Towel was able to have some fun at the expense of online translators when finding a description of Sami Salo.
“Sami Salo is a professional ice hockey sports magazine according to the information seriously injured in training by June.”