Have a date this evening with someone I don't know well and I don't know if I can get myself into good enough spirits for that.
I felt bad about potentially re-scheduling, thinking to myself it shouldn't be a problem to shelf this for a few hours, why can't you do that? But maybe it's not strange to need a little time to grieve something that mattered, even if the physical connection wasn't close.
There's no way this isn't weighing on my mind for any stretch of time today.
It's a hard one.
I went to the gym and almost wanted to cry doing deadlifts. Just difficult to think about anything else today, aside from your own loved ones.
Do what you need to do, everyone is different and you know yourself.
quite easily the most impactful celebrity/athlete death in my life. Not only because he was a Flames player for almost a decade (and a darn good one!), but because the way Johnny and Matthew passed is just so senseless, avoidable and enfuriating. The thought that their parents lost two children, their sister lost two brothers one day before her wedding, their wives lost their husbands and two little children lost their father, all because of one drunk driver, is just sickening.
Just such a senseless tragedy, it's hard to find words. But speaking of words, I struggle with the word "accident", which has also been used in German speaking coverage of this.
I think it hurts even more because we didn't just get to the player and person Johnny was, but his family (Guy and Jane) also became a big part of the Flames lore during his time in Calgary. We got to know his parents and his uncle who regularly interacted with Flames fans. The love the family had for each other was on display. It was a really rare and special relationship.
It's absolutely gut wrenching to think of the unbearable pain they are going through and will have to live with the rest of their lives. Consolation is impossible right now, but I hope they find some solace knowing how much their whole family is loved by the hockey community.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
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Unfortauntely Johnny never got to raise the cup, but man seeing old videos of him with the likes of Mony, Chucky, Bennett, etc... we didn't realize how good we had it.
Unfortauntely Johnny never got to raise the cup, but man seeing old videos of him with the likes of Mony, Chucky, Bennett, etc... we didn't realize how good we had it.
We did though, that’s why many were so devastated when he left.
Feel inspired to makes some "drive safe for Johnny (C)" bumper stickers for those unhinged tailgaters to look at and consider when they do what they do.
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I'm going to be in Columbus downtown tomorrow on an unrelated trip. Will leave an offering of skittles, purple Gatorade and potentially a Flames Gaudreau jersey on behalf of Calgary puck.
Hadn’t commented on all this today or last night when it was becoming clear that the rumours were true because I don’t even know what to say other than this is just a terrible tragedy for the entire Gaudreau family and my heart goes out to them but wanted to say that this is awesome of you to do Cowboy.
Most Flames fans were naturally upset about how things went at the end of his tenure as a flame but what got lost in all the emotions at the time was that they were all so upset because they loved the guy so much and were gonna miss him.
My favourite memory of Johnny was when I let my kids stay up late on a school night to watch the game 7 OT against Dallas and when I saw the puck go in before the announcers called it I jumped up and cheered louder than probably anytime since Gelinas’ OT goal against the canucks in 04. My kids said they didn’t notice what had even happened because they were so distracted(ok I’m pretty sure I actually startled them a little bit) by my reaction, they said they’d never seen me so excited. One of those little moments with my kids that I’ll cherish forever.
Feel inspired to makes some "drive safe for Johnny (C)" bumper stickers for those unhinged tailgaters to look at and consider when they do what they do.
