BOSTON — Marian Hossa is one of the Chicago Blackhawks’ top scorers, with three game-winning goals already this postseason.
And then, suddenly, he wasn’t in the lineup for a team that needed all the scoring it can get.
Hossa’s surprise scratch from Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals — and the one-word explanation, “upper,” for the part of his body that was injured — is part of a long-running cat-and-mouse game NHL teams play on the theory that any information about injuries is a competitive disadvantage.
“I think that’s self-explanatory,” said Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, declining to explain why he declined to explain the secrecy surrounding Hossa’s injury.
Tuukka Rask stopped 28 shots from the depleted Blackhawks to help the Bruins win 2-0 on Monday night and move two wins from their second Stanley Cup title in three seasons. Game 4 is Wednesday night in Boston before the series returns to Chicago for a fifth game.
Hossa is expected to play in Game 4, Quenneville allowed, but only after making clear that “I’m not going to get exactly what the injury is or where it occurred.”
“It’s sort of a secret society in the hockey world and in the injury world,” Blackhawks forward Dave Bolland said. “You don’t want other teams having any injury information at all.”
Asked if he had seen Hossa or had a chance to talk to him, Bolland said, “I don’t know.”
You don’t know if you’ve seen him or talked to him?
“I don’t know if I’ve seen him,” Bolland repeated with a sly smile.
Hossa’s mysterious injury may have been a turning point in Game 3, but it is hardly unusual in the secretive world of hockey injuries. Players and coaches say they just don’t talk about what’s hurting, partly because they don’t want to seem weak in a sport where they hit each other for a living.
But mostly, they don’t want let the other team know where to aim.
“If I’m going out to battle and I have an injury to any part of my body, I don’t want the other side to know what it is,” Bruins forward Shawn Thornton said.
Injury information can also help the opponent strategize. Quenneville was so concerned about giving the Bruins advance notice of even a few minutes that he didn’t let substitute Ben Smith skate in the warmup even though there was a chance he would need to play.
“I just didn’t want to tip our hand that there’s something going on,” the coach said.
“Ben was ready. I knew he was doing everything,” Quenneville said. “We were hopeful that Hoss was playing, and Ben was doing everything to get ready. He was ready.”
It worked.
“I’m still surprised,” Thornton said. “I don’t know what happened to him.”
No hard feelings, Bruins coach Claude Julien said. After all, he would do — and has done — the same thing.
“I respect that from other teams. When you’re playing against each other, you know exactly where everybody is coming from,” Julien said.

“There’s times where you have to protect your players, and I understand it. I know it’s frustrating for you guys as media. You’re trying to share that information. The most important thing for us, we can take the heat for that, is protecting your players.”

So, how to tell if an injury is minor?

When a team actually admits it exists.

“I’ll share one with you: Yesterday in a warmup, Zdeno Chara fell down, got a cut over the eye,” Julien said, making light of the mishap in the way that only a coach two wins from an NHL title will do. “I’ll let you know about that. That’s not a hidden injury.

“If it’s something that doesn’t put your player in danger, I don’t see why you shouldn’t talk about it,” he said.

Players say they don’t have to be told not to discuss injuries; it’s as much a part of the culture as Canadian accents and playoff beards. Blackhawks forward Patrick Sharp said he doesn’t remember when he first learned the subject was off-limits, but it was long before he reached the NHL.

And hockey players are not alone.

“It’s not just here,” Thornton said. “I don’t think Bill Belichick is (listing) all the injuries they have, either.”

But even the notoriously uncommunicative New England Patriots coach is required by NFL rules to say what body part is injured. NHL coaches have to narrow it only to “upper body” or “lower body,” which means a player with a concussion and one with a broken finger would have the same diagnosis.

During the playoffs, information is even scarcer.

“It’s that time of year where everybody’s kind of battling. I would say that not just injuries, strategy, all that kind of information we’re not going to talk about,” Sharp said. “It’s all part of being this close to the ultimate goal.”

And does he have any injuries he cares to mention?

“No comment.”

EL CAJON, Calif. — Ready to thrill a few hundred school kids, Jimmie Johnson hopped into a replica of his No. 48 car to fire up the engine.
The battery was dead.
He and some members of his group tried to bump start the car. That just bashed in the show car’s bumper, led to some odd grinding noises and the car started leaking oil.
Undaunted, the NASCAR star jogged through the parking lot to the grass plot where the kids were gathered, chanting his name.
It was an appropriate entrance, considering that Johnson was at Chase Avenue Elementary in his hometown to check out a jogging track that was built with a Jimmie Johnson Foundation/Lowe’s Toolbox for Education Champions Grant.
“I thought, ‘Well, since we’re running around the track, I’ll just run on in,’” Johnson said.
Johnson, the Sprint Cup points leader, ran a lap with some of the kids and his young daughter, Evie.
The school received a grant in 2010 to build the jogging track and install a large grass plot that has baseball backstops on both ends.
Principal Sue Geller said the area had been a sloped dirt plot. “When the rains came, there were crevices that would be great for an archaeological dig but not for exercise,” she said.
“That was the reality for Chase for 60 years,” she said. “We never thought we’d get any grass. We just kind of accepted it.”
The school not only got a grant from Johnson’s foundation, but the school district added funding, too.
Geller found out three months ago that Johnson wanted to visit the school in this blue-collar community on the eastern edge of San Diego’s suburban sprawl.
Johnson, who won five straight Sprint Cup championships from 2006-10, congratulated the kids for their accomplishments in the school’s running club.
“I’m so happy that all of you are running and focused on that because when you get old like us, it will make a difference, I promise,” said Johnson, who was one of four drivers who ran a half marathon before pole qualifying for the Daytona 500, which he won for the second time.
Johnson said his foundation gives about $1 million a year, mostly to schools, in El Cajon; Muskogee, Okla., where his wife, Chandra, grew up; and in Charlotte, N.C., where they live.
“It’s just always fit very well with us and I’m happy to be here in person today to see the track and run with the kids a little bit,” Johnson said.
Chase Avenue Elementary also received a grant from Johnson’s foundation in 2009 for a sound system.
In 2010, he visited nearby Emerald STEM Magnet Middle School to visit an automation and robotics lab that was built with a grant from his foundation.

“It’s so important, as we all know. As time goes on, physical education, the arts, these things start falling off the table due to budget constraints,” Johnson said. “I’m happy to see that a lot of the grant requests that come in to us are around the arts and around physical education and we’re trying to support those. There’s such a void in public schools right now and we’re just happy to make a difference. I love kids. It makes me smile from the inside out when I’m around kids, even at the race track or here at the school. They’re so innocent, so honest, and I’m still a big kid at heart, too, so I really enjoy my time around kids.”

Johnson had a modest upbringing in El Cajon and nearby Crest. His mother drove a school bus and his father operated heavy equipment. His dad worked in the racing community, which led to the son getting his start.

“It’s nice to come back. I’m awfully close to home. I can kind of see the hill I grew up on just off there in the distance so it’s really neat to come back,” he said.

Johnson, who has a car dealership in San Diego, said he was a good student at Granite Hills High in El Cajon.

“I didn’t get into a lot of trouble. The big carrot for me was racing. My parents were very smart, and my sponsors were, too, and I had to maintain a B average for school to have my outlet.”

While in the San Diego area, Johnson will host the big fundraiser for his foundation, a dinner and auction on Wednesday night and his seventh-annual golf tournament on Thursday.