When Dan Blumhagen touches his toes, his teeth pulsate with pain. When he sits in class, he thinks mostly of the doctors appointments he has yet to keep.And at night, when he lies in bed, he replays Saturday, Jan. 20 — the day the hockey puck screamed just before nailing him below the left nostril.The 22-year old senior Hixson scholar, with a double major in management information systems and transportation and logistics, remembers his arms bathed in his own blood the night the ISU hockey team played Western Michigan.”I don’t remember it hitting me,” Blumhagen said.Accounts vary as to how the puck made it to Blumhagen’s face.In a previous Daily article, ISU head coach Al Murdoch said the Cyclones were in the midst of a power play when Western Michigan’s Karl Merkle simply tried to clear the puck.Jon-Scott Johnson disagrees.Johnson is the risk manager for the city of Ames. He writes the insurance coverage for the city-operated/ISU-owned Ice Arena.”[Merkle] received a misconduct for intentionally hitting the puck into the crowd,” Johnson said.After that misconduct in the second period, Merkle sat out three more times for penalties.Blumhagen has a small scar on the left side of his top lip where the stitches used to be. When he smiles however, he reveals the damage. Teeth on the top and bottom are as jagged as broken glass.Root canals, caps and plastic teeth (enabling him to go on spring break without stares) await Blumhagen.And it will be costly. Blumhagen believes it could be upwards of $20,000. Some of it will come out of his pocket. Already, he has put $600 worth of bills on his credit card. It will also take a long time for him to return to the way he was. Blumhagen hopes his surgeries end in July – the month he starts working for Motorola.He added, however, that it could take up to two years for a full recovery.Meanwhile, his doctors bills pile up. Johnson hopes Western Michigan picks up some of the slack.”I don’t think the Blumhagens’ should have to stand for it,” he said.When Johnson sent his report of Blumhagen’s condition to Western Michigan a week ago, the officials there were dumbfounded, he said.Apparently, no one on the hockey team had notified the university of the incident.But Johnson and others are “doing everything [they] can” in working with the Western Michigan administration to find a solution.Western Michigan officials, who were unavailable for comment, have yet to release any statement.And then there is the ice arena itself.Blumhagen was about eight rows up with his fraternal twin brother David and his girlfriend Terri Schafer. They were at center ice — removed from the often beer guzzling, taunt-chanting student section to the left of them.And they were sitting. They were not standing and making a larger target for a pissed-off puck. Just behind them was a couple that brought along their 4-year-old daughter.Brian Barney, assistant manager for the new ice arena, said the current Plexiglas (the glass that surrounds the rink and provides safety for patrons from errant pucks) stands five feet tall in the corners and loses height where the fans sit.Netting that would hang down from the rafters and protect the fans, much like at a baseball game behind home plate, had been suggested, Barney said, “even before Dan.” However, Barney said it would impair the viewing of the game.The new ice arena will offer tempered glass, which is much thicker than Plexiglas. It will stand six feet tall around the whole perimeter of the rink. Donna Blumhagen, Dan’s mother, said they have begun speaking with attorneys, but she said it is too early to know what route the family will take.Wednesday, Blumhagen sat in a dental office for two hours as his jaw brace was removed. The brace looked like orthodontic braces, except it was placed on the border of his gum line and his upper teeth.He can stand to brush his teeth only once a day. Doctors told him swishing his mouth with saltwater will help rid it of the bacteria.Blumhagen said he does not plan to go to another hockey game “anytime in the foreseeable future.”Paul Kix is a sophomore in journalism and mass communications from Hubbard.