How far would you go to see your child play sports ?
In the case of Gary Sanford of Owen Sound, the answer is; Yaroslavl, Russia.
Sometime this week, Sanford, the father of netminder Curtis Sanford, will make the trek from the city to Russia to see his son play goal for Lokomotiv.
Gary Sanford relates there are 2 factors at play here;
First, he hasn’t seen his son play live in quite some time.
And two, in a fitting sequence, Sanford wanted to see his son play in his final game as a professional.
Of course, the second phase of the plan was derailed by his son’s play.
After a miserable start to the season by the team, Sanford & his Lokomotiv mates have got it together and likely will extend their season into the playoffs, something that wasn’t thought possible at the time the junket was booked.
In an irony, Curtis Sanford’s path through hockey has been a crooked one; one of the very few players I know to play Junior C ( Wiarton ), Junior A ( Collingwood ), Junior B ( The Greys ) and OHL ( Owen Sound ), go undrafted and still put together a very respectable pro career in the NHL & in Russia.
That path will be reconstructed in the mind of his father this week as he weaves his own way to Yaroslavl to see his son play…one more time
I’m Fred Wallace