[bc-chris]

i thought i'd share this with you guys - this is an email i got from a friend of mine who lives in calgary (obviously). a little bit of a read but well worth it.... oh... and a little bit of a tear jerker too!!

**i got this email in early june of last year... just as the 'nucks advanced to the finals, hence the 'saddened & disgusted comment' off the top of the letter......


Chris
as saddened and disgusted as we are all right now, I got some great news from the Flames today. My daughter , who is turning 3 in Aug, is a huge Flames fan (she didn't stand much of a chance with me as her dad).


She loves Harvey the Hound. Ive taken her to 4 or 5 games now, and its all about Harvey. She tells people her 3 favorite flames are Kipper, Iggy and Harvey!!

Anyways, long story short, my son was born 3 months premature last summer. He was 3 lbs. He spent 2 months in the hospital. People always asked how big he was....trying to give a measurement as if I was showing off a fish I caught made it tough for people to understand how small he was. So we bought a Stuffed Harvey doll. Harvey was 18 inches long. That was our new measuring stick. So we took pics of Maddox with Harvey at 2 weeks old, 4 weeks old etc. People could now gauge better how big he was, and how he was growing.

Emersyn (my daughter) was not allowed in the NICU, so she never got to meet her new bro until 2 months after his birth. My wife and I took shifts throughout each day to be with him.....but Emersyn was pretty smart, and realized that we weren't at the hospital 24/7. She asked 'who takes care of Maddox when you guys aren't there?'


We told her the nurses do, with help from Harvey the Hound. We showed her pics of Harvey with Maddox....she thought this was awesome!!! So she loved Harvey even more.

This past season, she was 2, we were at a Red Wing game in my seats. She told me all day that she wanted to go meet Harvey and say thank you for taking care of Maddox. I was thinking 'yeah right, once you see how big he is in real life, you wont want to go near him'


lone behold, we get to the game....flames are up 5-1, i'm happy, she is happy, and we see Harvey in the section below us. She looks at me and says 'daddy, can we go meet Harvey now?'

Lets go!!!

so we head down just as he is walking back towards the concourse level......nobody in between us. Just Harvey, his admin girl that follows him, and us. She RUNS, no....she SPRINTS towards him....i think she caught him off guard. She latched onto his leg and said 'Thanks for
taking care of Maddox' I'm sure Harvey was thinking WTF!! I asked Harvey
for a photo, he scooped her up, and took a great picture. He really made her day.

For the weeks after, everything revolved around Harvey.

fast forward to last month. My wife was starting to think about her bday in Aug. keep in mind, the Det game was in Jan. We asked her what type of party she wanted this year. She is turning 3. Dora? My Little Pony? Care Bears? NOPE!!!! word for word, this is what she said. "I want a Harvey birthday mom......then Maddox can see Harvey again.''

I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, high five her........but I was pumped!!!

I tried to email Harvey (there is a link on the Flames website.) no luck. tried again, no luck. Finally I wrote a email similar to this one to my season ticket account rep. She immediately emailed me back to say she would see what she could do. Today I got a email from Ken King. He said my email was one of the most touching emails they ever received. Not only will Harvey be at Emersyn's birthday, they will waive his appearance fee ($200).....and, they will bring autographed Flames stuff for all the kids!!!!

Not sure who was more pumped, me or Emersyn. Needless to say, if your in Calgary in Aug, you need to come by!! If not, I will take tonnes of pics and send some to ya!

Lets see the Canucks pull off public relations like that!