Thank You Mike Fisher. All the Best in Nashville.

Three posts ago, I blamed Carrie Underwood for the departure of a popular local NHL hockey player, Mike Fisher. That was unfair and a knee jerk reaction on my part. Fisher himself said that he did not request to be traded from Ottawa to Nashville and I have no reason not to believe him. He and Underwood even recently completed the building of a new home in the west end of the city. And after all, players changing teams in professional sports is just business as usual, especially with Canadian hockey players that marry blonde American women (Gretzky, anyone?). It appears the Senators wanted to trade Fisher anyway and did him a favour by putting him in Nashville.

My lament isn't that we've lost a hockey player. Fisher is a decent player, but better players have come and gone from the Senators without much notice. My lament is for the upstanding citizen that the community is losing. Someone who came to Ottawa at 19 and is leaving at 30. Someone who by all accounts is humble, generous, and gracious. And someone whose popularity stems mostly from what his does off-ice, rather than his skills on-ice. In the world of over-sized personalities in pro sports, this is uncommon indeed. A devout Christian, Fisher relies on his faith for guidance and he certainly lives up to it. If there's scripture that describes Fisher well, it would be from Matthew 6:1-2 :

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.

This is something that Fisher practices. Requests for his time in support of charities are given without fanfare. Unannounced visits to the children's hospital are done without formal announcements. And the single event that cemented his status in the community is shown in the photo above. He's holding Elgin-Alexander Fraser, a three year old boy days away from dying due to a rare form of cancer. Elgin's last wish was to see a live Ottawa Senators game. The Senators made it happen and more; Fisher later visited the boy in his home on his own time, with the public only finding out about it much later when Elgin passed away and the boy's father thanked Fisher publicly for the joy he brought to his son in his remaining days.

This is just a single example, amongst many, of his generosity. And this is what Ottawans will miss most with his departure. Thanks Mike Fisher, for your decade long community service to Ottawa. We wish you and your family all the best in Nashville.


Ottawa Citizen editorial: Missing Mike. A good player, a better person; City already feeling the loss of the quiet man and his big heart.