A fluke hockey injury — a skate caught in an ice crack — has cost the Anoka Ramsey baseball team one of its freshmen catchers.

Justin Allen, a highly to 2008 Fridley High School graduate, suffered the injury during a senior league tournament game played the second weekend of March — a broken ankle bone.

“It wasn’t a puck or stick hitting me, it was something I caught my skate in, a crack in the ice,” he reported. “I knew right away I was in trouble and knew that it had happened at a bad time [just before the baseball game season began].”

The quiet but talented Allen was told he will be in a cast for the greater part of the next five weeks at a time when Anoka Ramsey’s game season kicks into high gear. A former high school hockey player with the North Metro Stars and a second generation hockey athlete from Fridley, Allen came to Anoka Ramsey primarily as a catcher, but has experience playing the middle infield and first base as well as pitching.

“This was not the kind of news  you like to hear just before the start of your season,” said head coach Tom Yelle, who also had the privilege of serving as a hockey coach for a part of Allen’s high school career. “Indeed, his presence on the field will be missed.

“It was one of those things. I have never told any of my [Anoka Ramsey] athletes to not play hockey or even stay away from skydiving. In fact, I encourage each one of them to be as active and as competitive as possible — especially those who play hockey — regardless of the risks.”

With Allen on the disabled list at present, the bulk of Anoka Ramsey’s catching duties now fall squarely on the shoulders of two other freshmen, Coon Rapids graduate Joe Morrissette and St. Francis graduate Travis Earls…