Derek Boogaard Found Dead In His Apartment At Age 28

 

Wes Walz was driving on Friday when he received a text asking if he'd heard the news about Derek Boogaard. His first thought was that the big man had retired and considering Boogaard missed most of this season with the Rangers recovering from a concussion, retirement was a logical conclusion.
The news was much worse.
At just 28 years old, Boogaard is dead. The New York Rangers announced the sad news on Friday night. The Minneapolis Star Tribune first reported it -- Boogaard was found dead in his apartment, the cause currently unknown.
"I almost drove into the ditch," Walz told Sporting News on Friday night.
Walz immediately went home, got on his computer and tried to find out more. Everybody did. For four years, Boogaard sat to Walz's right in the Minnesota Wild dressing room. Any hockey player will tell you, you form a bond with the guy constantly changing gear next to you after countless hours sweating through practice together.

Walz used to give the 6-7 Boogaard a hard time, joking that a small family could canoe down the Mississippi River in one of his shin pads.
"He used to laugh about that," Walz said.
On the ice, he was feared. Minutes after his death, the links to his YouTube highlights immediately popped up over the Internet -- only an outpouring of tributes from hockey players on Twitter outnumbered those fight videos. Both were impressive.
He was known as the Boogeyman. The Rangers brought him to New York this season in hopes that he might clear up some space around goalie Henrik Lundqvist.
Phoenix Coyotes tough guy Paul Bissonnette was surely speaking for most hockey players when he told Sporting News in November that Boogaard was the last guy on the ice he ever wanted to fight.
"It's cliché," Bissonnette said at the time. "But if he swings through and connects with your face, you're (expletive) done."
But maybe in the days following Boogaard's death, go easy on the fight highlights and find out more about the person. He fought only because he had to, Walz said. Like every other good kid from Saskatoon, he wanted to play in the NHL and fighting was the ticket.
Spend a few years next to a guy in the dressing room, you learn what makes him tick and Walz concluded that it wasn't fighting for Boogaard.
"He never really loved beating people up. I can tell you that for a fact," Walz said. "If you asked him, he would rather have been a 50-goal scorer."
He destroyed opponents in fights, and Walz has a theory for that. If he beat people bad enough, nobody would want to fight him anymore. Maybe word would get out that it wasn't worth it to fight Boogaard.

Here's the reality -- the guy you see destroying opponents on YouTube? That wasn't the Boogaard teammates got to know at dinner and out for beers.
"He was just a sweetheart," Walz said. "Just a great, great dude."
So celebrate a man who was so passionate about hockey he did whatever it took to stay on the ice. And know also that there was more to him than the fighting. Much more. He was quiet and he was gentle. He worked hard off the ice working with a charity group that ensured children of military members get every opportunity to play hockey.
Fighting was just a way to make it happen.
"People need to know he was not the guy frothing at the mouth before games to (fight)," Walz said. "He didn't really love it. He didn't really love it."