Colorado Avalanche captain Joe Sakic, who was scheduled to return in mid-January from a herniated disk in his back, will instead be out for three months.  Why?  Freak snow blower accident.

[Sakic] has broken three fingers in a snow blower accident and will be out at least three months.

The Avalanche say Sakic underwent surgery Tuesday night for the broken fingers and tendon damage. The team says he’s expected to make a full recovery.

The snow blower accident occurred at Sakic’s home Tuesday afternoon, but the team hasn’t given any details.

“Hasn’t released details”????  Come on!  You can’t just put the words “snow blower accident” out into the world and not give any more details.  This is an awesome story about a freak injury to an NHL player, not some lame story like the results of an NHL game.

(pretty good list of odd sports injuries at Fan IQ)

Commenter/wet blanket Jim Jones was nice enough to take a break from picking up guys outside the free health clinic to send along this video (also available at Fan IQ) from Saturday night's Kings-Avalanche game.  Avs forward Ryan Smyth had just scored his second goal of the game when Jack Johnson took him hard into the boards by the Colorado bench.  Smyth lay unconscious on the ground for several minutes before getting up, but he's out indefinitely until the team's medical staff performs more tests.  When asked to comment, Johnson said, "No, I won't play 'Bubble Toes'! That's the OTHER Jack Johnson!"  You just know everyone was disappointed to learn that.