Altitude TV’s Colorado Avalanche analyst Peter McNab succumbed to his battle with cancer over the weekend. The 70-year-old was diagnosed in September of last season. Moser, Lombardi, and Kane of Altitude Sports Radio remembered their friend and colleague Monday morning.
“The thing that hurt me most — I just can’t come to terms with this — last year, that man was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, and he couldn’t even go to his own induction ceremony,” Vic Lombardi said.
“He needed to do games,” Marc Moser said. “He needed his mind to be able to focus on that and not the misery that he was in. He was always a rock for me. I could rely on him for anything. I knew what the treatments were during the day; what he was going through. I can’t imagine for people who have gone through it was a freaking nightmare it is to have to go through that all the time, and what it does to your body, and what it does to your mind.
“But he showed up, and he kept going and going, and that’s what probably kept him going. He couldn’t be there, but we were there for him and his brother was there accepting on his behalf. It was a wonderful night, and Gary Thorne — his first partner –, was the MC. We were all there to celebrate with his family even though he couldn’t be there. It was an honor to be there for us.”
They then discussed how much fun it was to follow the Avalanche’s run to the Stanley Cup last season, and how much McNab meant to the club, with Moser saying his greatest memory from the season was watching McNab discuss the victory with Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog after the celebration had started to slow down.
