It reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad...

This is an alum-post that in hindsight I should probably have made last week when his tweets about it were flooding my timeline, but it's finally confirmed that Mr. Christopher DiDomenico, formerly of the Saint John Sea Dogs, Drummondville Voltigeurs, Rockford IceHogs and Toledo Walleye is going to be playing in the boot, otherwise known as the country of Italia this season, with the Asiago Hockey Club.

He clearly loved this pose. http://www.asiagohockey.it/ 's Roster section might create a similar challenge unless they come up with a new concept.

(Mostly I was just asking myself why there was a distinct lack of Instafoods of gelato, because I really wanted to re-post those and make myself and everyone reading this blog jealous.)

Dido leaves behind a point-per-game season in the ECHL and 13 points in 49 games with Rockford. He's spent his pro career being bounced around and sometimes benched, sometimes injured, sometimes a mysterious mix of both.

Of course, no injury was as memorable as the one that still makes me cringe (after having only heard it on the radio of all things):

Drummondville Voltigeurs star Chris DiDomenico suffered a broken thigh bone in his left leg in a harrowing crash into the boards during a playoff game and will be out of action indefinitely.

The 20-year-old forward was hurt five minutes into the Voltigeurs' 5-4 victory over the Cataractes in Shawinigan on Tuesday night in Game 3 of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League final series.

A team spokesman said he was treated and had the leg put in a cast at a hospital in nearby Trois-Rivieres and was back home by Wednesday morning.

"DiDomenico is out for a long time," coach Guy Boucher said on the team's website. "It was a very painful injury." [1]

No kidding.

His role in the rest of the President's Cup final was far from diminished. Present at the side of the bench at each game in a wheelchair, the Voltigeurs' staff hung his jersey at their bench to inspire the rest of the team, a lot of whom were far from 100% healthy themselves.

Yannick Riendeau, who had four points for the Volts, said the team regrouped quickly after the injury and then "we pushed 100 times harder because we wanted to win for him." [1]

And then they did.

But without further ado, because I tend to linger a little too long in the memories of that year, here's to no more broken legs, a lot of gelato, and our favourite ex-#83 making us who are (half) Italian proud this season.