Odjick Speaks About Ice Guardians and Other Things
Ice Guardians: Odjick takes healthy look at documentary, his health, future of fighting
“It’s a hard way to earn an easy living.”
Legendary National Hockey League enforcer Gino Odjick offers up that line in the critically acclaimed documentary Ice Guardians.
It’s a chilling summation because “hard” doesn’t begin to describe the physical demands and mental anguish of being a designated deterrent, who endures crippling injuries and sleepless nights.
And “easy” is the antithesis of what fighting for a living actually is — a mind- and body-numbing struggle to stay relevant in a game that’s constantly changing.
Enforcers openly speak of the fear factor in Ice Guardians. Like a nervous kid waiting for the schoolyard bully to find him during recess, they chronicle the emotional roller-coaster it was knowing who they had to fight on a given night, the buildup, the angst, and if they were even up to the task —because turning down a fight was career suicide.
