TheRecord.com – Sports
By Jeff Hicks, Record staff
ELMIRA – Jessica Townsend is still in love with her long-lost ‘boyfriend.’
She’s still in love with Dan Snyder.
“There was a joke going around our families that I was his girlfriend,” said the 12-year-old Elmira girl yesterday as she gathered Atlanta Thrashers autographs inside their dressing room at the Dan Snyder Memorial Arena.
Sometimes, before Snyder died following a car crash in 2003, he would call her his girlfriend, too.
Their families lived close together. His death at age 25, after his unlikely ascent to the NHL with Atlanta, hasn’t diminished her affections for her hometown hockey hero.
Little spindle-legged Danny Snyder in the NHL? Ridiculous. But he made it.
Yesterday, wearing a No. 37 Snyder jersey from his Thrashers days, Townsend walked among the Atlanta players after they held an NHL practice before 1,400 at the month-old Woolwich Memorial Centre.
With a pen in one hand, the ponytailed peewee puck-chaser got the current Thrashers to sign her jersey, a sweater Dan never got the chance to.
“He was a great hockey player,” Townsend said. “He loved his fans. He didn’t just devote all his time to hockey. He spent time with his family.”
And his girlfriend.
On a cloudless Sunday, locals watched the Thrashers skate in full NHL duds at the $23-million multi-purpose facility while a horse-and-buggy convoy plodded quaintly down Arthur Street.
Dan Snyder dreamed of a top-notch rink to replace tiny old Elmira Arena, where he played junior for the Sugar Kings.
He worked to get the plans in place. Years after his death in a car driven by then-teammate Dany Heatley, with $5-million dollars in community donations, it became reality. The new Snyder Ave. rink, located just a few blocks from the old order Mennonite cemetery where Dan is buried, bears his name.
“This isn’t the way we wanted him to help,” Dan’s brother Jake said. “But his name kind of helped get a lot of things started. The way the community has come together to get this done has been unbelievable.”
Dan’s father Graham, who led the fundraising drive, wore a Thrashers jacket yesterday.
He was interviewed for Thrashers TV, and embraced his interviewer after the chat.
This day was special. The Thrashers bused in after a Saturday night win in Buffalo. After their practice, they dined with the Snyder family, signed autographs and were to fly to Montreal out of Waterloo Regional Airport.
If only Dan could have been there The Day the Thrashers Skated in Elmira.
“You could see how much Dan loved the game when he played,” Graham Snyder said, his eyes heavy with emotion.
“You could see how much he loved to play for the fans, for the kids. As a kid, he loved to be close to hockey players. On a day like today, he’d be right out front, eating it up.”
Snyder’s mom LuAnn was there too. Part of Dan’s charm was her charm too.
“He’s got a great family, a great mom,” Thrashers captain and former teammate Ilya Kovalchuk said.
“She’s so nice. It’s unbelievable. She reminds me of my mom.”
The Thrashers put on a nice show for their adopted hometown on Sunday.
The fans cheered when goalie Ondraj Pavalec was first onto the ice.
They oohed when Cambridge’s Bryan Little rifled a goal in off the post next to Johan Hedberg, the goalie they call The Moose. Between shots, Hedberg glanced up to fans standing above and behind his net so they could snap some photos. Hedberg risked a puck in the noggin for those spectators.
“To have this on the road, and have this kind of turnout, is really special,” Little said.
Noah Zeller, 9, watched the workout in his Woolwich Wildcats tuque and jacket.
Beside him, the Conestogo kid’s mom Andrea carried two hockey sticks to get Thrashers’ autographs etched onto.
Which Thrashers? “All of them,” she said.
Zeller’s sister Rachel, 13, plays for the Waterloo Ravens but couldn’t be there because she had a game.
But she wanted a signed stick too.
When practice was done, the Thrashers raised their sticks to the crowd in a rink built in Dan’s memory.
“This is a fitting memorial,” said Atlanta coach John Anderson, who coached Dan in the minors in Chicago.
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful facility.”
Thrashers general manager Don Waddell sensed the presence of Snyder’s spirit.
“Dan’s with us today,” he said. “The past is still with us. Dan Snyder will be with us forever.”