Ref gets slammed in face by player and it saves his life. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/02/22/hockey-attack.html Being beaten up during a hockey game may have been the best thing to happen to Saskatchewan referee Dale Neudorf. If a player hadn't cross-checked him in the face with a hockey stick on Sunday and sent him to hospital, doctors may never have discovered the large tumour in his brain. Doctors spotted the growth while taking an X-ray and a CT scan of Neudorf's brain to make sure he wasn't seriously injured in the on-ice attack near the northern community of Meadow Lake. "I wouldn't call it fate: I believe there's a God that created me and looks after me," Neudorf, 45, told CBC News on Thursday. "And whatever methods He uses — if it's a weird incident like a cross-check in the face to get me down here to get my head checked — well, that's probably a good thing." Neudorf said doctors want to remove the brain tumour immediately.
