Minnesota Wild Tough Guy Ryan Reaves Takes On Smelling Salts, Loses

Ryan Reaves of the Minnesota Wild is one of the toughest customers in the National Hockey League, but he was no match for one strong batch of smelling salts.

Reaves was trying to get himself fired up during the WIld's 3-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks and turned to some smelling salts.

That's not unusual at all in the NHL. You see guys cracking smelling salts and taking whiffs all the time.

The stuff Reaves had came in some kind of blue can and at first, it looked like he wasn't getting anything from it.

He seemed a little confused by the apparent lack of "wakey-uppy" odor coming from that can.

Then it hit him. Hard.

What was in that can? There's no way those were regular, run-of-the-mill smelling salts, right?

I mean, that's a dude who has taken many a punch at the NHL level and doesn't bat an eye. Whatever was in that can had him gagging.

That stuff must have been radioactive or something to get that kind of reaction out of a bruiser like him,

Now, Reaves' reputation as one of the NHL's few remaining enforcers has been cemented over the years. That's good because between the smelling salts and one of the worst fights of the season, it has been a tough couple of weeks for his tough-guy image.

That fight pitted Reaves against another tough customer in Arizona's Boko Imama. Despite the heavyweights involved, that fight was barely a fight at all.

Still, it's going to take a lot more than one terrible fight and a slightly embarrassing run-in with smelling salts to sully Reaves' rep.

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