Our thoughts at THN go out to the Johnson family and anyone close to Adam.
The hockey world was delivered a difficult blow on Saturday when the Nottingham Panthers officially announced that forward Adam Johnson had tragically passed away following a freak accident in their game Friday night.
Johnson, a 29-year-old Minnesota Native, played 13 games and 257 AHL games, 42 of which came with the Ontario Reign.
Johnson spent the 2020-21 season and part of the 2021-22 season with the Reign, meaning there were still former teammates of his on the team now.
To honor Johnson, the Reign held a moment of silence before puck drop.
They also announced Johnson as the first star of the game and displayed his jersey at center ice.
Jacob Doty, who was a good friend of Johnson's, displayed the jersey and a group of former teammates touched it before leaving the ice.
It was an emotional moment for the team and an emotional day overall.
Alex Turcotte was one of Johnson's former teammates and shared his thoughts on the situation with me after the game.
"It was obviously super shocking and really sad," said Turcotte. "Johnny was a really good guy, great guy, really funny, always joking around with the boys. He was here my first year, the COVID year, and obviously my second year. I was a rookie and he was so nice to me, he liked to mess around and joke around. He kept it light so, yeah, it's obviously tough, it was a tough day for a lot of us. That's all I was thinking about all day. It's nice to get the win for him, we're all thinking about him and his family and yeah, it's just really scary, we're going to miss him a lot."
Marco Sturm also made a comment on the tragedy post-game.
"Some guys knew him better than others, I had a chance to meet him a couple of times at training camp," said Sturm. "I kind of left it alone before the game, the game puck, after the game, it was towards Adam. It was emotional, I met him as a good kid who just wanted to play hockey and just fish in the summer. It's tragic and we all think about him and his family for sure."
The tragedy has also started a conversation about making neck protection mandatory for players. Some players around the world have begun wearing them already and both Sturm and Turcotte are on board with the idea.
"Yeah, that was my question in the morning today, I know they started in youth hockey, but they got away from it again," said Sturm. "It will be interesting what they're going to do now right? We changed already with different socks and sleeves, starting with that, the neck, I don't know, could be another thing. For sure, it's something we all have to look at."
"Yeah, I would have no problem with that," said Turcotte when asked about wearing neck protection. "It's weird, a couple of us were saying we want to wear neckguards now. We wear the wrist guards we wear the cut-proof socks, I don't see why we shouldn't wear them and protect us. Obviously, it's really sad and unfortunate that it had to take something like this for it to be kind of a topic, now we're discussing it. Hopefully, I'd be all on board with it and totally supportive of it."
I'll echo Turcotte's thoughts that it's unfortunate and sad that something this tragic had to happen for a new safety measure to be implemented. Hopefully, in the near future, neck protection will become commonplace in hockey.
Our thoughts at THN go out to the Johnson family and anyone close to Adam.