[Cecil Terwilliger]

Zezel asked if he could be traded to an Eastern Conference team so he could be closer to his dying five-year-old niece Jilliann, who had been diagnosed with a neutroblastoma.

Burke responded by moving Zezel to Anaheim, which couldn’t have been further away from Jilliann for Zezel, at which point the player promptly retired after he and his agent Mike Gillis talked things over.

There arose such a hue and cry that Burke ended up having to buy out Zezel’s contract and made a donation to a cancer charity — one that the Canucks favoured, not necessarily the player.

http://theprovince.com/sports/hockey...of-peter-zezel