Keeping Things in Perspective

Writing a hockey blog is fun, and it's great to be able to directly insinuate that the Montreal Canadiens have a collective Napoleon Complex or that the female division of the Gillette family of products really needs to do some test marketing in the Ottawa area.

It's awesome to rave about a great performance or goal, and rant about overpaid defense or slow glove hand. But the reality of the situation is that Jason Blake has leukemia, and that is extraordinarily bad. I don't mean it's bad for me, Leafs fanatic. I don't mean it's bad for the team, who need his goal scoring. It's just goddamn bad for a guy and his family. It's a rare form of it called Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, which apparently is not as malicious as other forms of the disease, so that's a plus. Also it was caught early, so there is that.

When you first hear about it, the Leafs fan in you rises to your throat and you are tempted to consider the long term ramifications of this situation. But then thank God, reality takes over and you do away with with such small minded thinking like a hockey team is the most important thing in the world. At any other time I'd fight to tell you that. Now though, whatever.

I wrote about Fernando Pisani getting sick a month or two ago, and now Jason Blake. Take a second to give a thought about those two guys, who work like dogs to give us some pleasure from our respective teams. Put some good energy out there, don't yell at someone today, and, I don't know, send $5 to the Canadian Cancer Society or something.