Tough stay-at-home defenceman Ryan Jorde will be forced to sit on the sidelines for six weeks after breaking a bone in his arm in the Stingrays embarrassing 9-2 loss to Edinburgh.The British Columbia native blocked a big slapshot from pointblank range during the second period of the Rays home loss to the impressive Caps and, after slowly leaving the ice clutching his arm after the incident, he was taken straight to hospital.
Further assessment revealed that the shot broke his ulna, the longest bone in the forearm, and that he will be condemned to the sidelines for around six weeks.
27 year old Jorde will be a big miss for the Stingrays, who are already without Lee Mitchell, through injury, and Curtis Huppe and Adam Knight, through suspension, and although coach Sylvain Cloutier is disappointed to lose the solid blueliner, he knows his side will be forced to cope with the setback.
"His injury will hurt us and we are going to miss him. He is a 'steady Eddie', he clears the net and adds toughness - he is a big part of the defence. But we just have to deal with it."It means the other four guys will have to pick up their game, which they did in Coventry, and we will need to count of those guys now. We will need to play strong 'D'. But Adam is back after next weekend and can play 'D' so we do have options."
The injury brings back bad memories of the season just past, in which Rick Strachan's side were, at one point, down to just two fully fit defencemen following injuries to Stuart Kerr, Paul Moran, Troy Neumeier.
