Derek Boogaard, #94 for the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League, was found yesterday in his apartment by his brothers, dead at the age of 28. And there’s rampant speculation about the cause of his death, showing probably the biggest downside of the Internet.
People are talking about the concussion he suffered fighting against Matt Carkner of the Ottawa Senators back in December that ended his initial campaign with the Rags as it relates to his premature death. But there’s no evidence of that. Hundreds of hockey players suffer concussions and not once have they ended up with an incident like this.
Not that I’m going to play armchair doctor, but heart conditions usually come to mind in these premature sports deaths as we saw with Darryl Kile and Alex Cherapanov, another Rangers property. They usually go undetected until it’s too late.
I know it’s especially convenient to blame this on concussions especially with the NFL and players battling over player safety particularly relating to concussions and their relation to player well-being. But there’s no reason to believe that and very little evidence, most of it circumstantial.
Please don’t try to figure out what was the only thing that could take down the Boogey Man. Let’s just try to remember a player who was apparently a giant teddy bear off the ice who was involved with charities and helped out kids. That’s what we want to remember.
This doesn’t have to become a political debate. A human being died here. We can worry about all that stuff later. It’s just trivial.
