A funeral in Saskatchewan looms...

Family, friends, teammates and hockey executives will gather tomorrow morning in Regina, Sakatchewan at The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Depot, where tens of thousands of cadets have attended basic training since 1885, for a private funeral service for forward Derek Boogaard.

Boogaard, 28, died in his Minneapolis apartment last Friday, from a lethal mix of the potent pain killer oxycodone and alcohol, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's report, which was released this afternoon. The office termed his death accidental. Perhaps a better word is unintentional because friends have said he was upbeat about his future.

The RCMP location “is fitting,” said Devin Wilson, a friend and former teammate told Newsday. “His father (Len) is an RCMP official in Ottawa, and Derek was all about the military. A lot of people didn’t know, but he said that after he was done playing hockey, he hoped to join and go overseas. Sort of like Pat Tillman.”

Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety, left the NFL and enlisted in June 2002 and served several tours in combat as an Army Ranger before he was killed in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2004.

As it turns out, Boogaard’s battles were not only fought on the ice, from Prince George and Medicine Hat of the WHL to Houston of the AHL, to Minnesota, where the 6-foot-7 Saskatoon native played five years for the Wild, and finally, for 22 games with the Rangers after sustaining a concussion in a fight with Ottawa’s Matt Carkner on Dec. 9.

In a statement thanking the hockey world for its condolences and vowing to continue Derek's charity work, the family also acknowledged his fight against addiction.

"After repeated courageous attempts at rehabilitation and with the full support of the New York Rangers, the NHLPA, and the NHL, Derek had been showing tremendous improvement but was ultimately unable to beat this opponent. While he played and lived with pain for many years, his passion for the game, his teammates, and his community work was unstoppable," the family said.

An NHL spokesman told Newsday : "Regardless the cause, Derek's passing is a tragedy."
 

Cannot agree more. Wish I'd gotten to know him better.

In mid-February, when he had begun light workouts, Boogaard told Newsday that he “felt better than in a long time…There’s finally light at the end of the tunnel.” Boogaard, who had seen several specialists, including an acupuncturist, said: “It was scary for awhile. When you have an injury that you can see, you know it’s going to be a couple weeks or whatever, but with this you don’t know.” Referring to a newspaper article about how Yankee catcher Jorge Posada was concussed by foul tips hitting his mask, Boogaard noted that doctors were “learning so much more about concussions and how people react differently…and so am I. I’m sure I’ve had some.”

Whether concussions impaired his judgement or not is unclear. No M.D. on my resume.

But Wilson, a defenseman who played with Boogaard in Prince George and had recently invested in a Manhattan condo with him, said, “There’s no question he must have had a hundred concussions. He didn’t win a single fight his rookie year. But he knew his job was to protect his teammates.” Boogaard’s family is donating his brain to Boston University researchers who are studying degenerative brain disease in athletes.

Along with representatives from the Wild, Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather and about 30 members of the organization, including Marc Staal, Brandon Prust, Michael Del Zotto and Wojtek Wolski will attend tomorrow’s service. One group is leaving from California, where team executives are holding organizational meetings; another group of players and staff is traveling from New York. Head coach John Tortorella, recovering from knee replacement surgery, has not been cleared to fly, and was video-conferencing the meetings.

Wilson, who was born in Regina, is bringing some of Boogaard’s personal items from New York to give to the family, which, along with the Rangers, has requested that donations be made at www.defendingtheblueline.org, a non-profit organization designed to keep hockey alive for children of those in the armed forces. Donations also can be sent to Defending The Blue Line, c/o Boogaard’s Booguardians Memorial Fund, 1206 N. Frontage Road, Suite B, Hastings, MN, 55033.