Breaking: Team Canada's captain played through major injury at World Juniors.

As hockey fans know very well, hockey players are so of the toughest customers in all of sports and one young man proved that again recently. 

The International Ice Hockey Federation's World Junior Championship tournament is one of the prestigious events in all of international hockey each and every year and with the top young talent from all over the world battling it out during the competition it's also one of the most important events of the year for young prospects. It gives young men a chance to showcase their skills against, in theory, a greater level of competition including some faces that they may see in the future at the National Hockey League level. As you can imagine in those circumstances players are often willing to go well above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a chance to prove that they can hang with the world's best.

According to a breaking news report from the Anaheim Ducks organization it seems that Team Canada captain Maxime Comtois was one of those players who went far beyond what could normally be expected of a player in order to represent his country at the tournament. The Ducks have just reported that Comtois suffered a separated shoulder either at the World Juniors themselves or perhaps even prior to the tournament and opted to play through the injury rather than sit on the sidelines and watch his teammates have all the fun. This news puts an entirely new spin on some of the rather harsh criticisms that Comtois received during the tournament, including criticism that flooded his social media accounts after he missed a crucial penalty shot against Team Finland.

No normal person could be expected to play through such a significant injury but it's exactly the kind of toughness that hockey fans, especially Canadian hockey fans, have come to expect from players who proudly wear the "C" on their jersey. Although Canada did not do particularly well at the World Juniors this time around there's no question that Comtois' physical sacrifice speaks highly of both his leadership abilities as well to his dedication to his team, country, and the sport of hockey as a whole. 

The Ducks now expect him to miss the next 2 weeks of action as he takes the time to properly recover from this injury.

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