SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Brad Marchand put the puck in the back of the net for the Florida Panthers on Saturday night, then pointed a finger in the air and looked to the sky.
The reason was obvious.
Marchand’s sixth goal of this season and the 430th of his career was unlike none other. It came three days after he was home in Nova Scotia, paying tribute to the life of 10-year-old Selah Panacci-MacCallum — the daughter of his close friend JP MacCallum. Selah died Oct. 24 of adrenal cortical carcinoma, a rare form of cancer.
“We fully appreciate the things that are most important and hockey’s very, very important,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said earlier Saturday. “But there’s some things that just easily outweigh it and they need to be dealt with. And what he’s going through is real. … There’s things that just trump the game of hockey.”
Marchand missed Florida’s game against Anaheim to be with his friend’s family in Nova Scotia, and did so with the Panthers’ blessing. Marchand filled in for JP MacCallum as the coach of the under-18 March and Mill Co. Hunters in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Wednesday night; Marchand co-owns that team.
That game Wednesday was a fundraiser for the MacCallum family.
“A beautiful life has been lost,” . “My bond with JP goes back many years. … We grew up together. Our lives have been crossed for many, many years. There’s no place that I’d be other than here right now.”
___
AP NHL:
The post Panthers’ Brad Marchand scored a goal with special meaning. It was for Selah appeared first on Associated Press.
