Why the mystery on NHL injuries?

Oh, so that's what Patrick Kane's injury is.

“We're going to leave it as a lower body,” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville told reporters Tuesday.

Welcome to the NHL, where not even WikiLeaks can uncover precisely what is ailing a player like Kane.

It has become acceptable practice for teams to describe an injury as either “lower body” or “upper body,” vagaries that provide more questions than answers.

Like, does the lower body begin below the waist or below the forehead? Or is it anyplace below the Upper Peninsula of Michigan?

As for the upper body, is it up from dandruff or up from hip pointers? While we're at it, doesn't a hockey player ever suffer a “middle-body injury” like a sprained navel?

Quenneville went on to say of Kane's injury, “I think you can speculate what it is.”

Educated speculation is that Kane has a sprained left ankle that will keep him out for at least three weeks. Apparently Quenneville just couldn't get himself to utter the word ankle, like it was a private part.

Now stop here to think of what might be the only thing every other American major team sport hates more than empty seats.

That's right: Media speculation.

Cubs management wanted to limit guessing on injuries so much that they almost disseminated too much information on what really was wrong with Mark Prior, how long they projected he would be sidelined and whether amputation was inevitable.

The NFL issues reports every week specifying a player's injury from broken arms to torn ligaments to bruised egos and whether he's probable, questionable or doubtful for Sunday's game.

In the NBA, well, the Bulls not only revealed that Carlos Boozer injured his hand at home but confirmed that he tripped over a bag on the way to answering the door.

No matter how minor or major the injury, or in Boozer's case how embarrassing, teams usually disclose at least some details.

Yet the NHL invites dreaded speculation, perhaps because it need not worry about widespread gambling on games.

The best that reporters can do is stare at the injured party and judge what body part he's favoring. Pretty soon they'll also have to carry personal X-ray machines to practice to diagnose the disabled.

Sure, this is absurd, though not more absurd than the NHL's game of medical hide- and-seek.

I know the Hawks fear that if opponents know the nature of Kane's ailment, when he returns they'll take cheap shots at that part of the anatomy.

This makes no sense. For one thing, NFL players are every bit as exposed to violent contact, but information on their conditions isn't treated like classified military coding.

For another, if a player is in increased jeopardy because the opposition knows where he's hurt, then he shouldn't be out on the ice anyway.

The injured player might get hit on purpose if he has a target on, say, his knee. But the way the game is played he's likely to be hit in that area by accident, too.

Either way the damage could be season ending.

If a player's upper, middle or lower body isn't healthy, he shouldn't be out there; if he is healthy, game on.

To summarize, here's what we know so far about Patrick Kane: He has a sprained left ankle but speculation is that it might be a bruised right shoulder.

mimrem@dailyherald.com