Undrafted out of junior hockey, Sharks right winger Joel Ward had a difficult road to the NHL having played Canadian Interuniversity Sport, a lower-level hockey which doesn’t produce many NHLers.
He traveled that road without his father. When Ward was 14, his father, Randall Ward, collapsed while watching his son play and died as a result of a blood clot.
Despite several obstacles, Ward reached the NHL as a free agent with the Minnesota Wild in 2006-07. Establishing himself as an NHLer with the Nashville Predators in 2008-09, Ward made an easy decision on a potentially depressing choice of who to bring on the team’s father’s trip.