Fatigue gave way to emotion for Les Kuntar on Monday when he attempted to put into perspective spending the past 11 days playing one continuous hockey game.
Standing at center ice and sipping a beer, the 47-year-old former professional goalie's eyes welled with tears as he recalled a poignant moment that occurred early one morning during the bid to break the record for longest game and raise money for cancer research.
"A lady came and she had a bandanna on her head, so she was obviously undergoing chemotherapy," said Kuntar, whose career included playing six games for the Montreal Canadiens during the 1993-1994 season.
"At the end, she came down with a white sign that said, 'Thank you,' and stuck it on the glass. And we all just stopped and tapped our sticks," he said. "It's just amazing how many people are touched by this whole thing."
Kuntar and 39 other Buffalo, N.Y., recreational league players -- many of them in their 40s -- overcame injuries, illness and countless blisters to unofficially set the record. It happened shortly after 7 a.m. when the official time clock mounted in the stands overlooking center ice hit 10 days, 10 hours, 3 minutes and 21 seconds. The time surpassed the previous mark recognized by the Guinness World Records of 250 hours, 3 minutes and 20 seconds, established during an outdoor game near Edmonton, Alberta, in February 2015.
Fans stood, cheered and hollered, and play was stopped briefly as players hugged on the benches and on the ice. They played for about 32 more minutes before the final buzzer sounded for a game that began at 9 p.m. on June 22 and ended with Team Blue beating Team White 1,725-1,697.
Organizers must submit the full-length game video and official 54-page scoresheet to Guinness for verification.
A far more important tally came afterward when player and organizer Mike Lesakowski announced they had raised more than $1.2 million for Buffalo's Roswell Park Cancer Institute, surpassing their goal by $200,000.
The two teams were split into mostly seven-player groupings (five skaters, a goalie and one substitute), which rotated playing four-hour shifts. Play stopped each hour for 10 minutes while the ice was cleaned.
Many were forced to take additional shifts to fill in for those who became sidelined by injuries and illness because rules prevented teams from adding replacements once the game began.
Flying DeAngelo
Veteran running back DeAngelo Williams (Wynne) tried his hand at wrestling over the weekend. It could have gone horribly wrong for him.
Williams, participating in Impact Wrestling's Slammiversary XV on Sunday, capped a tag-team match he participated in by climbing to the top rope and jumping from the turnbuckle. Williams' target was lying on a folding table.
So Williams hit the body on the table with his torso, and his head went past the table and slammed onto the mat. Williams literally could have broken his neck.
"This is what happens when it's real and people think it's fake," Williams said on Twitter, posting the video of the climb, jump, landing and eventual pin. "But the money is real."
Much of wrestling is fake, but the stunts are real, and the risk of serious injury is always present. While it's unclear how Williams was supposed to properly land when jumping onto a large human lying on a flimsy portable table, it's safe to assume he wasn't supposed to take a header onto the mat.
So, yes, the danger is real. Perhaps even more real than it is in the NFL, which could still come calling for Williams once injuries to other tailbacks occur.
Sports on 07/04/2017