Call it the gif that keeps on giving.
Hockey player sits on bench, takes big honking haul of smelling salts, reacts. Whammo. Retweet gold.
Tuesday night, the salt sniffer in question was Toronto Maple Leafs winger Mitchell Marner, whose between-shift boosts kept him alert enough to set up a pair of goals in a victory over Detroit and extend his rookie assists lead to 37.
The best part of this clip? Matt Martin looks like his dealer.
[relatedlinks]
While loops of NHLers inhaling ammonium carbonate are hilarious (scroll down for a bunch, mostly captured by Stephanie Vail), the question remains: How effective is the chemical?
Well, it certainly wakes you up, but it definitely won’t cure any concussion symptoms.
“It’s like inhaling super-powered Windex,” Doug Richards, a University of Toronto medical director, once told Sportsnet. “It’s a noxious stimulus.”
Ammonia crystals are commonly found in cleaning products and fertilizers. When released, the ammonia gas irritates (and possibly burns) the player’s nasal and lung membranes, triggering a sudden, deep inhalation. Poof: Instant head rush.
Prolonged use is poisonous, but the occasional snort is relatively harmless.
Here are a few of smelling salts’ greatest hits:
