Canucks: Rick Tocchet makes hospital go to the night time earlier than Blues recreation

Rick Tocchet is a real folks particular person. He visited former Blues participant Kelly Chase in hospital on Wednesday night.

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One factor we’re coming to study Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet: he cares about folks.

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Since being employed in Vancouver final January, Tocchet has spoken overtly about his gamers and companions, exhibiting a excessive degree of emotional intelligence in regards to the wants of others, about how he can help these round him.

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He’s massive on speaking, on studying from others, on doing what he can to grasp folks. The way in which the gamers on the Canucks speak about him, it’s clear he’s made a deep and private connection along with his gamers.

And it’s clear his record of mates round hockey is lengthy, which isn’t a shock the extra we study his constructive and supportive persona.

The newest instance of this: Tocchet spent hours visiting Kelly Chase, former St. Louis Blues enforcer and radio broadcaster, in a St. Louis hospital Wednesday night, a day earlier than Tocchet’s Canucks had been to tackle the Blues within the first recreation of a seven-game street journey.

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Chase has been battling most cancers for a while and in an image he posted Thursday morning on X, previously referred to as Twitter, Chase was seeking to present how Tocchet’s go to was boosting his spirits. Recognized for sporting an extended mane of hair, Chase’s head is now shorn shut, an indication that he’s present process chemotherapy remedy.

“You’ve gotten an actual buddy that may spend 4 hours in a hospital room the night time earlier than a recreation on the street. First Class Tocc. Throughout winner,” Chase wrote.

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“He actually cares,” Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford instructed Postmedia Thursday morning.

Studying about how a lot Tocchet cares about folks has been a powerful factor, I famous to Rutherford.

“I’m positive. I skilled the identical factor 11 or 12 years in the past,” Rutherford replied.

Final month, forward of the Blues’ Hockey Fights Most cancers night time, Chase shared a message with Blues followers:

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