Logan Hunter was the ultimate teammate. As a hockey player, a husband, a father, a family member and as a friend. If you knew Logan, you knew he had your back. Always. Under every circumstance. He was there for you.
Logan passed away at the age of 39 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
He was someone who understood the game within the game on the ice and carried that over to the rest of his life.
He took care of people.
Logan was the kind of person who never shied away from any situation.
In his first season in the Ontario Hockey League, the London Knights were on the verge of being eliminated from the playoffs.
They faced about as impossible a situation as a team could have in front of them.
The Knights needed to win their final three games. They also needed the Kitchener Rangers to lose their last four games.
Believing it could even be done was the first part of making it happen. That’s where Logan Hunter came in. He wasn’t going to believe that the season was over until it actually was.
Logan scored for London in a 5-2 victory over the Sarnia Sting and boarded a bus for Sault Ste. Marie.
Before the Knights arrived the Rangers had lost twice.
London beat the Greyhounds and returned home for another must-win against Owen Sound.
Kitchener lost their fourth straight game and then Logan assisted on the game-winning goal by Dennis Wideman and the Knights made the playoffs. They have not missed the post-season in any year since.
Nothing was ever over until it was over.
And nothing was more important than the people around him.
Logan rode shotgun for Rick Nash and made sure opponents from a much different hockey world in 2000 knew what could happen to them if they tried to take liberties with the budding superstar.
Logan used to line up for faceoffs and remind players on the other side that to get to Nash they would have to go through him first and that if they tried to do that Logan would, “dial 2-3 or 2-4.”
Those digits spelled out the uniform numbers of Sean McMorrow and Andy Burnham, who were possibly the two toughest players in the league.
In two seasons in London, Nash put up 138 points and was the first overall pick in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft.
Three years later it was Logan who accepted a trade to Peterborough to open an overage spot that brought in more experience on defence and helped the Knights to capture their first Memorial Cup championship.
That is a rare kind of unselfishness.
But Logan was a rare kind of person.
And he will be missed forever by anyone who had the pleasure of getting to know him.
Comments