Hab’s quick decision to pick up young cancer patient and carry him to blue line for national anthems was a beautiful, heart-tugging moment.
There were some beautiful, emotional moments before Saturday’s game between the Canadiens and Vegas Golden Knights, which was also Hockey Fights Cancer Night at the Bell Centre.
The most heart-tugging moment of the pre-game ceremony came when the Canadiens’ Josh Anderson decided to drop his stick and pick up the young cancer patient he was going to stand at the blue line with — a 6-year-old boy named Easten — when it looked like the child might fall after stepping on the ice.
What Anderson did — and the way he did it — was wonderful. It was the highlight of the night with the Canadiens eventually losing the game 6-2 to the Golden Knights.
“I don’t think I ever second-guessed picking him up,” Anderson said after the Canadiens practised Monday at the CN Sports Complex in Brossard. “I heard my name getting called and then I saw this little kid. I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it right now.
“You see what they’re going through and you want it to be his moment and I didn’t want anything to happen to him,” Anderson added. “I didn’t want to take that chance of him falling on the ice. I just asked him quickly — I don’t know if he understood me — but I just said: ‘Do you want to try to walk or do you want me to carry you?’ I think he kind of froze and then I just said: You know what, I’m picking him up.”
Once they got to the blue line and the U.S. anthem started, Anderson smiled when he noticed Easten was moving his feet back and forth the way most NHL players do.
“It was the cutest thing,” Anderson said. “That’s why I was holding him so tight and I thought that was so cool. And then after the game, when I went up (to the media lounge) to see the kids his dad came up to me and thanked me and he said: ‘You know what’s so funny? He’s been practising standing on the blue line all week.’ And I said: ‘I can tell because he was doing the back-and-forth step.’ I thought that was really cool to see. I wasn’t letting go of him the whole time.
“I was kind of letting him have his moment,” Anderson added. “I remember saying to him after one of the anthems: ‘How cool is this? This is your moment. Enjoy it.’ It was cool talking to his dad after the game. I got a chance to see (Easten) again and signed his hat and jersey.”
Like just about every family, the Andersons have been affected by cancer. Anderson lost both of his grandfathers to the disease. He never got the chance to meet his father’s dad and his mother’s dad passed away about seven years ago from colon cancer.
“She’s doing good,” Gallagher said when asked about his mother after Monday’s practice. “She’s never out of it, but she’s continuing to fight every single day. She’s going through another round of chemo right now, so she’s battling and we’d expect nothing else from her.”
Hockey Fights Cancer Night is an emotional one for Gallagher.
“It means a lot to have those kids there, to see their positive attitude with everything that they’re going through,” he said. “It’s a special day.”
It’s also a special day for Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis, helping to put things into perspective.
“We’re playing a game … we’re playing a sport,” St. Louis said after Saturday’s loss. “And there’s a game of life out there that’s way more important than any games we play. And the battles that they go through are way more important than the battles we go through.
“I’m a parent, so you see those kids out there, you wish them well,” added St. Louis, who has three sons. “Obviously, the kid’s affected by the fight, the battle they’re going through. But it affects more than the kid … it affects the families. So I want to wish all these kids and their families the best while they try and beat whatever they have.”
Amen.