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The Maple Leafs coach has a black eye and nasty cut for stitches across his forehead after a Thursday solo mishap.
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Published Jan 23, 2026 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 1 minute read
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Toronto Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube suffered an injury while working out at the gym. TwitterArticle content
A black eye and stitches were a familiar Craig Berube profile when he was on the Maple Leafs bench in the early 1990s, or in any of his five-team, 1,100-game playing career.
But when he walked to the podium at Scotiabank Arena for his morning media update, the coach was sporting a shiner and then lifted his baseball cap to reveal a deep gash on his scalp that had been stitched up.
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The 61-year-old, who racked up 3,250 penalty minutes during his playing career, obliged the curious group of reporters with the back story, knowing TV viewers would see his eye and the head wound when he does pre-game interviews for Friday’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights.
“I had an accident in the gym (Thursday),” Berube said, joking “the other guy looks way worse. There was three of ‘em.”
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But he insisted it was a solo injury — “a bad accident, it was stupid, entirely my fault. I’m fine. The (players) laughed, they loved it, especially when I told them what happened.”
He wouldn’t get into whether it was a weight-lifting injury, hinting “something like that … I’m not going to talk about it.”
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Another Leafs coach who had an accidental head injury of that kind was John Brophy.
The minor-league scrapper was hustling underneath the stands at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, taking an intermission short cut during a late 1980s game against the KIngs when he cracked head on a low-hanging bar.
The hyper intense Brophy would not let trainers bandage him and red splotch of blood mixed with his famous white mane in a startling colour contrast.
“His head looked like the Japanese flag,” winger Mark Osborne recalled.
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