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Jake Voracek thought he broke his foot. It turned out to be gout so painful it made him, well, you’ll see.

The ex-Flyer confirmed a story his former teammate told on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast with one too many details.

Flyers right wing Jake Voracek shoots the puck against the New Jersey Devils on May 1, 2021.
Flyers right wing Jake Voracek shoots the puck against the New Jersey Devils on May 1, 2021.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Hockey players are known for playing through severe injuries, but Jake Voracek’s story is one of the most painful — and most absurd.

Michael Del Zotto, who played with Voracek on the Flyers from 2014-17, made an appearance on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast and told the story of what Voracek thought was a broken foot, but turned out to be gout.

“He comes into the training room... and he goes, ‘My foot’s [bleeping] broken,’” Del Zotto recalled in the clip shared on social media. “’Did you block a shot?’ He goes, ‘No.’ ‘Did you roll it?’ He goes, ‘No, I don’t know what I did.’ A couple days later, ‘My foot’s [bleeping] broken. It’s [bleeping] broken; you’ve got to do something about it.’ He can’t get his foot in his skate. He gets a CT scan, he gets an MRI, he gets an X-ray. ‘It’s not broken, Jake, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not broken. You seem to think it is, the proof shows that it’s not.’

“Long story short, this goes on for a couple weeks, they find out later, he’s got gout. This guy was a 27-year-old professional athlete with gout. His diet consisted of pilsner, red wine, wagyu [beef] specifically — he didn’t touch any other type of meat — and sushi. The amount of food this guy put down the night before, he put down enough for a table for four for himself. It was disgusting, disgusting how much he ate. But then the next night he’d go in and be the best player on the ice.”

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Gout is a type of inflammatory arthritis commonly found in old men, and can be triggered by a diet with excessive beer and meat, as might have been the case for Voracek.

The podcast posted the clip to X, formerly Twitter, and a few fans in the replies questioned how severe his gout could have been if he was still capable of skating through it. But Voracek showed just how much pain he was feeling.

“Oh man you have no idea,” Voracek wrote. “Once I [peed] myself putting the skate on for the game.”

Former Flyers teammate Carlo Colaiacovo, who played for the Flyers with Del Zotto and Voracek in 2014-15, replied, confirming the story as an eyewitness.

Voracek added that he still scored a goal and added an assist in the first period, as only he could.

Broad Street Hockey investigated to find which game Voracek might have been referring to, and found three possibilities — Nov. 14 against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Nov. 29 against the New York Rangers, and April 5 against the Pittsburgh Penguins — all games during the 2014-15 season in which he recorded a goal and an assist with Colaiacovo playing.

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But, Voracek might be a bit fuzzy on the details, since there were no games that season, the only season Colaiacovo was with the Flyers, when he had both a goal and an assist in the first period. It’s possible Colaiacovo only heard the story and is misremembering being present for it.

Regardless of the sketchy details, this story is yet another reason why Voracek was such a one-of-a-kind player and teammate. As Del Zotto said, he’s “as old school as they come.”