A Ferrarri traveling at 80 mph through a neighbourhood, driven by a 22-year-old male slams into an iron and brick wall, ejecting him and his 25-year-old friend. The 22-year-old suffers a broken jaw and a knee with all ligaments torn eight ways from Sunday.

The 25-year-old suffers massive head injuries after being ejected from the car in the wreck. After surgery to repair a depressed fracture of his skull, he dies six days later, having never regained consciousness.

In just a few seconds, 22-year-old Dany Heatley's promising NHL career is most likely over. Even if he's able to recover and rehabilitate after having his knee knitted back together, there's the psychological trauma of the wreck itself, and being responsible for the death of his teammate and friend. And that's not even taking into account the possible jail time for vehicular homicide (as prosecutors are pushing for).

And in just a few seconds, the life of Dan Snyder came to an end. It is my sincerest hope that Dan Snyder's last moments of life were filled with singing loudly and happily along with the car stereo, talking about hockey and girls, and that he didn't know what hit him.

In just a few seconds, the lives of two families were smashed into chaos and grief. In just a few seconds, a team that was looking forward to the beginning of a new season now has to cope with the loss of two teammates...one who they'll never see again and one who will never be the same.

I pray for Dany Heatley's physical recovery and wish for him a lot of emotional strength to get past this tragedy. He's going to need all the strength he can muster.

I pray for Dany Heatley's and Dan Snyder's teammates on the Atlanta Thrashers, that they can find the strength--both within themselves and by relying on each other--to play through this tragedy. It's always difficult to lose two teammates...to lose them so tragically and senselessly just one week before the season starts just defies description.

I pray, most of all, for Dan Snyder and his family. I pray that Dan is now playing shinny on that great skating pond in the heavens. And I pray that his family will eventually heal from such a devastating loss, especially considering they'll (we'll) never be able to make sense of what happened.


update 10 October, 2003
Well, the team doctors for the Atlanta Thrashers seem to think Dany Heatley could play again this year. Evidently, his knee surgery was very successful...I suppose the question will be his emotions. It's one thing to knit someone's knee ligaments back together...healing the soul is quite another trick.

After their first game of the season, the Thrashers--including Heatley--travelled to Elmira, Ontario to bury Dan Snyder. Dan Snyder's parents not only welcomed Heatley to their son's funeral, they are being very supportive of him. Hopefully, that support can and will continue, because it will go a long way toward healing Heatley's spirit.

I ran across a commentary by Kevin Allen from USA Today and agree with him that Heatley should serve some punishment, but vehicular homicide just doesn't fit what happened.

I had a hard time reading the articles about Snyder's funeral once I read the part where young hockey players were tapping their sticks in the street to honour Dan Snyder. And I think we all can learn a lesson from Graham Snyder in being compassionate, forgiving, humans. He's able to find it within himself to forgive Dany Heatley for making a mistake that cost him his son's life. When I look back on my day today and think of all the times I lost patience with people, Mr. Snyder's comments just absolutely humble me.