So hard saying goodbye to Simmer, my first friend in professional sports
“Simmer” – I’m not sure anyone I ever knew called him Shawn – left us this morning and all I can hear is the tone of his voice and his gentleness and polite Canadian demeanor. And my mind is mired in my adolescence in the 1980s, covering hockey and these special players who were all my age, trying to make it just like I was trying to be a sports journalist. We were 18 year-old kids when we met.