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Armstrong noble, but not smart
By
Lance Hornby, QMI Agency
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  Colby Armstrong has been forced to shut it down after finally admitting he has a concussion. (ERNEST DOROSZUK/QMI Agency)
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Ron Wilson found it hard to stay angry at Colby Armstrong for trying to play through a concussion.
Only when Armstrong became nauseated before Monday’s game against the Kings did the severity of his injury, along with a broken toe he tried to ignore, become apparent.
“That’s old school right there, where you don’t tell anybody and hope you can fight through,” the Leaf coach said Wednesday. “At least he realized, even if it was late in the day, that he just couldn’t fake his way through it.”
Wilson agreed in part with a reporter that such brave intent should nonetheless be discouraged in this time of rampant head trauma.
“But if a guy doesn’t tell you that he has symptoms, it’s no different than 90% of men who don’t go in for a check-up,” Wilson said. “And why? We have all these (medical) issues and that’s just the way a lot of us were brought up. Unless you think you’re dying, you don’t see a doctor, you don’t say anything.”
And Armstrong is no ordinary player, having now missed as many games as he’s played since joining the Leafs last season with a litany of mishaps.
“He’s trying to be noble,” Wilson said. “He’s had a lot of injuries and doesn’t want to be known as fragile, injury-prone or anything. So he didn’t alert anybody until he felt that bad.”
