Thursday, May 29, 2008

Canucks d-man Luc Bourdon killed in crash

The news that Canucks defenceman Luc Bourdon, just 21 years old, was killed in a motorcycle crash in his native New Brunswick makes anything else seem a little trivial by comparison.

Sympathies are due to the sports community in New Brunswick, which is barely removed from the fatal crash involving the basketball team at Bathurst High and now has to deal with the loss of one of its two active NHLers (presumably also the only Acadian in the league). Bourdon was from a community of about 3,000 people. Just imagine what it would feel like if a town such as Gananoque or Napanee lost its most famous son.

There's a post up at Mirtle. This isn't the time or place for moralizing. In the days ahead, some people will wonder why NHL teams don't have riders in players' contracts prohibiting them from driving motorcycles. The motorcycle lobby, no doubt, would have statistics showing that a motorcycle isn't that much more dangerous than four-wheeled travel. Let's stress that the circumstances of the crash haven't come out. A young man is dead. That's enough.

(UPDATE: More details have come out; the sanctimony is being left to others. Get over yourself, Scott Morrison. Puck Daddy has plenty of condemnation.)

1 comment:

Andrew Bucholtz said...

Wow... still wrapping my head around this one. Terribly sad to see anyone die this way, but Bourdon was so young and had so much potential. He really seemed like a likeable guy from his interactions with the Vancouver media, too.