Help Kirts End ALS

First of all, I would like to thank the Toronto Maple leaf Alumni and the Brewer family, for choosing ALS as the 2022 winner of the Carl Brewer Memorial Award. Yes, it is Mark Kirton up here receiving this wonderful award for ALS advocacy work but the reality is, ALS as a whole community, is the big winner!

Finally, after 80+ years, this underfunded and ignored disease is starting to be understood and thank you again Leaf Alumni for being part of it. Major-league baseball now recognizes June 2nd as Lou Gehrig day commencing in 2021 and celebrated every year by every team in the majors which is huge for ALS awareness.

With over 190 drug trials running around the world, I truly believe that a cure is years away and not decades as many thought a few short years ago.

To be still here in front of you, with symptom onset in 2015 and an ALS diagnosis in 2018 which told us that I would be lucky to survive 2 to 5 years and here we are, closing in on year 6 in March 2023 is amazing. And still feeling pretty good. It is a testament to the wonderful care that I receive from my family and the consistent support received from friends and a strong faith that has really kept me going with the will to survive.

And I must say in closing, that the hockey community never ceases to amaze me….

It doesn’t matter, that I did not play with the former player.
It doesn’t matter, if I played in a different era than the former player
it doesn’t matter, if I haven’t seen or heard from a teammate for over 30 years

As soon as word gets out that a player has an issue that he is dealing with, the hockey community rallies and lines up at the door asking what they can do to help. And boy is that comforting.

When Tiger called me (by the way, that’s Tiger Williams-not Tiger Woods) early on in the process, he told me to call him any time of the day for any reason… Even if I simply wanted to chat because as he told me ”once a teammate always a teammate” … Well, I would like to take that a step further and say “once a player always a player”.

I’ll leave you with this one last thought. If someone mentions ALS in any way or form in your circles, please do me a favour.…

Tell that person the truth, that it is a devastating disease, which in a short time tortures and sucks the life right out of the ALS patient and traumatizes the family forever who has to care, live and witness it.

In other words… Tell them to MAKE NOISE! BE LOUD! and join the ALS family and make a difference in helping to find a cure!

Thank you