Got his number
When Pierre-Olivier (P.O.) Joseph makes his NHL debut, he will be honouring his former Quebec Major Junior Hockey League teammate, Matthew Welsh.
Joseph joined Pittsburgh following a trade with the Arizona Coyotes, and was asked by the Penguins what jersey number he'd like to wear.
Despite wearing 15 during his time with P.E.I.'s Charlottetown Islanders, that 3.5-season span was one of the few times he hadn’t had a seven on his hockey, soccer or baseball jersey.
“The lucky seven was always part of our family,” Joseph tells the Guardian's Jason Malloy.
With 87 obviously already taken in Pittsburgh, Joseph decided to pick the number 73 to honour his former Charlottetown teammate Welsh – the two were drafted into the Q on the same day and were key parts of the franchise during their junior careers.
Read more about the former teammates' close bond, along with a bit of history of 73s in the NHL.
Breathing easier
On a day many would consider unlucky, Judy Robichaud got some of the best news she's ever received.
Her 16-year-old granddaughter, Tahlia Ali from Cole Harbour, N.S., was finally getting the double-lung transplant she needed.
Even as Tahlia was on the road to recovery, a member of their extended family had a unique and difficult reaction to hearing her good news, reports the Chronicle Herald's Jen Taplin.
Robichaud’s nephew Vic O’Neail lost his 18-year-old son Christian in their hometown of Winnipeg in 2013. He suffered immense brain damage and his family made the decision to donate his organs.
When Robichaud informed O’Neail of Tahlia’s double-lung transplant, he was conflicted: both happy for Tahlia but filled with understanding and sorrow for the donor’s family.
“After seeing Tahlia's ‘I did it’ video, I had an overwhelming awareness of what our son had done seven years ago. The gift that he gave. The result of his gift is life. Life for someone that we will see grow and blossom in our family. That being said, I still ache for the loss of my son. That won't go away but we are healing every day.”
Click here to read the family's story and watch Tahlia's video.
A walk to remember
As his life’s journey comes to an end, John McIntyre felt it was time to take a 700-kilometre trip down memory lane — with the Cape Breton Post's Christopher Connors in tow.
In 1979, McIntyre decided to walk from Truro to Glace Bay and back to honour his father, John Sr., who had been confined to a wheelchair after his spine was crushed in a 1954 rockfall at the a coal mine in Glace Bay.
“It had a great impact on me — I was four at the time,” recalls McIntyre, 71, who is in the late stages of terminal brain cancer. “He was away for two years with his injuries. By the time he came back home, I was scared of him — I didn’t even really know him. It was scary for a while until I came around and got comfortable with him and then I accepted the fact that he was my father and he was in a wheelchair and that was the way it was.”
So, in June of that year, McIntyre and colleague Harold Perro set out on the two-man walkathon, with half of the money they raised going to the Canadian Paraplegic Association on behalf of McIntyre and Perro’s share going to the Nova Scotia Heart Foundation in the name of his father, who had died of a heart attack.
Relive the walkathon with McIntyre and check out some of the great photos that were captured in 1979.
