Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien announced at  his noon news conference in Toronto that Rene Bourque has been belatedly  diagnosed with a concussion.   Bourque had missed the last two  games  with what was throught to be flu-like  symptoms.

Team doctors discovered the concussion symptoms during routine tests connected with his illness.

Therrien said Bourque has no idea when the injury occured which has everyone scrambling for game-notes looking for possible events.   For instance Bourque’s last shift in a game came as the Islanders were scoring the winning goal at 3:12 of overtime last Thursday.  The only  recorded hit involving Bourque in that game was one  he initiated on  the Islanders  Matt Martin in  the 7th minute  of the first period.

The closest  thing to a concussion inducing incident that I could find was  that sucker  punch he took from  Colton Orr of the Leafs late in that 6-0 fiasco at  the Bell Centre February 9th.   If  such is the  case, it’s  possible that Bourque carelessly hid or tried to play through symptoms for two weeks.

Therrien said “Sometimes you get these things and it doesn’t show up for a week or two.   It’s a tough break because he’s been playing very well for us.”

Here’s the sucker punch (no audio)

The full video of the brawl which produced two roughing minors and a ten minute misconduct to Orr, fighting majors  to Josh Gorges and Toronto’s Frazer McLaren.

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