Doctors confused Senators' Tyler Ennis for basketball-playing namesake

A medical mix-up last year briefly gave Ottawa Senators forward Tyler Ennis the impression his ankle injury was much worse than it was.

After taking a shot off his right ankle in December 2018, Ennis - who was playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time - was initially told he had a fracture. However, he then received a more extreme diagnosis.

"They pulled up my X-ray. And they're like, 'Whoa - you've got a really bad displaced break here,'" Ennis told TSN's Ian Mendes. "I said to them right away, 'But you said this wasn't displaced.'"

As it turned out, his doctors had an image of Ennis' namesake, the Canadian-born basketball player who had coincidentally also hurt his ankle not long beforehand.

"They double-checked and they actually had the image from the other Tyler Ennis, who broke his leg playing basketball overseas," the hockey-playing Ennis said. "His break was a lot worse than mine. When they confused our X-rays, I was a little nervous. I thought my recovery was going to take a lot longer."

The Ennis who was actually diagnosed with the more serious break is now playing for the Raptors' G League affiliate. He had returned home to Toronto to rehab after suffering his injury and undergoing surgery in Turkey while playing for Fenerbahce in October 2018.

"Wow. Just wow," the Syracuse product told Mendes with a laugh. "The timing of that is just mind-blowing. I can only imagine what he was thinking."

He added, "I was going for X-rays every couple of weeks in Toronto, so it makes perfect sense."

The basketball player ultimately missed more than a year with a leg injury, while the hockey player was out for fewer than two months with his ankle ailment.

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