For all the Sean Avery stories there are in hockey, you know there are 10 more stories like this that don’t get the attention they deserve.
Or maybe they don’t get attention because those responsible for them just know it’s what they should be doing.
The Chicago Blackhawks are being celebrated around the Internet, and now in more mainstream media, for deciding to forgo a charter flight back to Chicago after their Nov. 22 game in Toronto in order to go to the wake for general manager Dale Tallon’s father the next day two hours away in Gravenhurst, Ontario.
Former Wisconsin captain Adam Burish told the team’s Web site: “It was a no-brainer that we were going to be there for Dale and his family. Every guy in this locker room would say he’s a guy they’d do anything for. He comes in here and he’s always positive. He treats everybody here like his sons or part of his family, so to show up to his father’s funeral for him and his wife and their two daughters, it was a thing most people would do for him and something that needed to be done and we were happy to do it.”
On the way back to Toronto after the wake, the team stopped at a McDonalds for dinner, perhaps prompted by former North Dakota star Jonathan Toews.
“We saw some little hockey cards of (Patrick) Kane and Toews,” Burish told the team’s site. “Toews was actually the one who asked to go to the McDonald’s and we think he did that just so he could see his hockey cards.”
It’s an interesting story, and it reminds you that there is a lot of good in sports — even professional sports — despite that it often gets masked by poor choices.
