Retired NHL star Rob Ray should probably dig his old helmet out of storage if he’s going to continue serving as a rinkside reporter.
The 56-year-old former Buffalo Sabres winger was working the team’s game against the visiting New York Rangers on Saturday night when he took a puck off the center of his forehead.
‘Oh, f***!’ Ray exclaimed while undoubtedly in excruciating pain.
Unsurprisingly, this is the second time in two seasons that Ray has taken a puck to the face while working as a rinkside reporter between two NHL benches. He had a similar incident in December of 2023, only that puck did not strike with the same force of the one that hit Ray on Saturday.
‘And Rayzor just took another one… and that was a rocket,’ MSG Network’s Dan Dunleavy said on the Sabres broadcast, while using Ray’s nickname. ‘Doctors are checking out Rayzor very quickly. That was very close to the eye.’
The puck appeared to come off the stick of left wing Beck Malenstyn, who immediately recognized that Ray was in extreme pain.
Former NHL star Rob Ray was sewn up during the game and return to action
MSG sideline reporter Rob Ray compared the swollen growth on his forehead to a golf ball
Ray was perched in his usual position between the home and visiting benches in Buffalo
As Dunleavy mentioned, Ray was quickly tended to by Sabres doctors.
Of course, Ray was a hockey player, and just like the last time he took a puck to the face rinkside, the Stirling, Ontario native managed to stay in the game.
‘Got a couple there on the eyebrow, couple of little stitches,’ Ray told his broadcast partners after getting sewn up and returning to his rinkside post.
Asked where the puck hit him, Ray turned sideways, showing a swollen plum-sized wound growing off the center of his forehead.
‘Right where the golf ball is right here,’ Ray joked. ‘That’s not normal.’
Fans were understandably forgiving about Ray’s on-air profanity.
‘I do believe that is the correct response,’ one fan wrote on X.
‘Totally gets a pass for that one,’ another added.
One fan on Instagram put it best: ‘I think everyone agrees you get to say that when you take a puck to the face.’
And of course, many on social media used the incident to poke fun at the last-place Sabres.
‘Good thing it was a home game,’ one fan wrote, ‘nobody probably heard him.’
Rob Ray, a former Sabres winger, also took a puck off his face during 2023 game
Years ago, the NHL created what’s known as the ‘Rob Ray rule’ in response to his tactic of shedding his gear to give opponents less equipment to grasp during brawls
Remarkably, the struggling Sabres pulled out an 8-2 win over the rival Rangers. Tage Thompson, Ryan McLeod and Rasmus Dahlin all scored a pair for Buffalo.
Ray, a 6-foot Canadian, was known for his toughness across 15 NHL seasons.
He’s credit with 250 career on-ice scuffles, according to HockeyFIghts.com, which claims he dropped the gloves 27 times in 1995-96 and another 25 in 1990-91.
The NHL even created what’s known as the ‘Rob Ray rule’ in response to his tactic of shedding his gear to give opponents less equipment to grasp during brawls.
Now players who shed their jersey during a fight are automatically given a game misconduct.
