Would this still apply if Crosby developed a random allergy to his equipment halfway through the contract?
If Crosby had to take cyclosporine pills in order to avoid oozing blood and pus all over his bed at night, he'd stop playing hockey, too. You people don't have to remain ignorant on this topic forever.
On the onset of the skin condition:
It’s weird, I never had such problems before. It began 4 years before my last season and it kept intensifying each year. I started noticing patches of irritated skin especially in places where gear wraps up around the body like elbow pads etc…It started itching and later became so unbearable that I was scratching it till it was bloody. My wife was grabbing my hands…I couldn’t sleep in short sleeves since my bed was all bloody and my wife had to wash sheets constantly. Then the doctors gave me the meds which I took to keep playing during my last year.”
On the worsening of the condition
“Before the 2016 WCup finals the team doctors wrapped me in bandages like a mummy, I wasn’t even sure I was gonna play. Next year after we lost to Nashville in playoffs I came home, threw all meds in the garbage and called it quits”
On the skin condition during WCup:
“I skipped team dinners and ordered room service since it was all seeping through my clothes and it was very nasty”
About the process of getting on LTIR and retiring:
“The league sent me to see a specialist in medical clinic in Minneapolis, apparently the best clinic in USA. There they assigned a doctor to me, a random one not affiliated with Hawks in any way (for obvious reasons). He studied my medical records and asked me if I still want to play hockey. I said yes but I’m taking these and these meds to do so and I don’t want to. He said that I made a good choice cause if I continued to take them it’s like chemotherapy.”