This year the local Winnipeg chapter of the PHWA has nominated defenceman Neal Pionk as the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy nominee for Winnipeg. All 32 chapters nominate a player who “best exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship, dedication to hockey” and the winner is selected from that list of 32 by the entire PHWA.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
Last season Pionk had to deal with the tragic passing of his good friend Adam Johnson in October. He also played part of the season through the pain of a broken foot.
Today after skate he had this to say about being nominated:
“It’s a prestigious honour. Obviously a lot of guys have gone through some stuff and I’ve certainly had loss in my life in the last year and I just thank the guys for helping me through it.”
On being a pro hockey player while dealing with the loss of a close friend he had this to say:
“The first initial shock of it is tough. Tough for everyone. Where it gets tough is when the noise settles down and I know some people have had it way worse than I’ve had. Specifically talking about his family so that’s the thing I keep trying to reach out to them. Even in the past couple of weeks ’cause obviously everyone reaches out right away and even a couple of weeks after that but there is a time where the noise settles down. That’s where you kinda gotta regroup and reach out again.”
On hockey being part of his healing process:
“It’s a little bit of a distraction. Kinda like I said last year it was nice having some of the guys on the team knew him, whether it was from college or other pro teams, we could bounce stories off each other. So that was nice right away in the locker room. It kinda keeps your mind off of it. When you go home that’s what you think about. When you come to the rink it’s a distraction, a good distraction too, cause there were a lot of good memories we had.”
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