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Tyler Ennis is a professional hockey player, but he’s also a professional basketball player. Confused? You’re not the only one, because doctors once made the mistake when delivering a diagnosis for an ankle injury a couple of years ago when both had similar leg damage.
According to TSN‘s Ian Mendes, the NHL Tyler Ennis said that, after getting nailed by a puck in a game last season, he was told by doctors that he had a “misplaced” ankle after they reviewed the x-rays. There was just one problem; it was the wrong Tyler Ennis. The basketball Ennis had, in fact, been the one with the more sever injury, and the initial news stunned the hockey player.
“They pulled up my X-ray. And they’re like ‘Woah – you’ve got a really bad displaced break here,’” Ennis said.
Ennis was confused by the severity of the situation, with the doctor making it seem as though he might have suffered a season-ending injury.
“I said to them right away, ‘But you said this wasn’t displaced,’” Ennis remembers saying at the time.
Confused, the medical staff went back and re-examined the image. It turns out they did have the X-ray image of a badly displaced ankle bone from Tyler Ennis.
It just wasn’t the right athlete.
“They double-checked and they actually had the image from the other Tyler Ennis, who broke his leg playing basketball overseas. His break was a lot worse than mine,” explained Ennis. “When they confused our X-rays, I was a little nervous. I thought my recovery was going to take a lot longer.”
Well, it’s a good thing Tyler Ennis the hockey player said something to the doctors, don’t you think? Could you imagine being in his position and hearing the bad news about his ankle, then thinking he would miss the bulk (if not all) of the regular season? It’s like an April Fools Joke gone bad.
As for the basketball Tyler Ennis, he laughed when told about the shock of the NHL player, even admitting that their identities get confused by people all the time.
“Wow. Just wow,” laughed Ennis, who is now back on the court with the Raptors 905 team. “The timing of that is just mind-blowing. I can only imagine what he was thinking.”
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“I was going for X-rays every couple of weeks in Toronto, so it makes perfect sense,” the basketball-playing Ennis said.
The two players are used to frequent cases of mistaken identity – albeit in less serious situations.
“It happens all the time,” said the basketball-playing Ennis. “If I’m out the waitress will look at the bill if I’ve paid with my credit card and say, ‘Are you the hockey player?’ I always find it funny when someone says, ‘Didn’t you used to play hockey?’”
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“I basically get updates on him every game. People message me on Twitter and social media thinking it’s him,” he explained.
Pretty funny stuff, and it’s cool that both Tyler Ennis’ find good humor in all this — especially with the x-ray mistake, because that could have been pretty bad.
And, while both athletes share a name and get updates on one another, seemingly, by accident, they have yet to meet in person. They both hope it happens at some point, though.
“We’ve just been kind of weirdly connected over the years. I’ve always followed him and cheered for him,” said the hockey-playing Ennis. “He’s a Canadian kid like me. I think we both got waived or bought out around the same day one time.”
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“One day maybe we’ll finally meet each other,” says the hockey-playing Ennis.
The basketball-playing Tyler Ennis agrees, saying a jersey swap is definitely in store for whenever the two do meet in real life.
“I would love to do a jersey swap now. That would be really cool,” the basketball-playing Ennis said. “And if he scores, hearing my name announced inside a hockey arena would be pretty cool.”
Pretty good stuff from both Tyler’s, so here’s to hoping they aren’t so badly confused moving forward.