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Sunday, October 10, 1999
Tragic teammate with 'Canes forever
But in spirit, yes. Definitely. Here. There. Down whatever roads they may travel.
"We were watching tape the other day, getting ready to play Boston," recalled Paul Ranheim yesterday. "And included were clips from our playoff series against them last year. And there was Chase. Alive. Playing great.
"It was jarring. It hit you again. The senselessness of what happened. How avoidable it was. Everybody just kind of went 'Ah!' It almost took your breath away."
It's been five months since defenceman Steve Chiasson, well over the legal alcohol limit after a season wrap-up party at the home of teammate Gary Roberts, died in an automobile accident on a lonely patch of dirt road in North Carolina, heading home, his season over.
For someone renowned for invariably making the right decision on the ice, Chiasson made a wrong one that night. And it cost him more than just a goal or a scoring chance or two minutes. It cost him his life.
The 'Canes wear a sticker commemorating him on their helmets, a patch on their uniforms. The Steve Chiasson Memorial Fund has been set up. This year's Carolina media guide contains a two-page tribute in his memory.
He isn't in their lives anymore. But he's in their thoughts all the same.
"The guys, you know, will be sitting around talking and someone will say 'Remember when Chase ...' Or `Chase used to say ...'," said Ranheim.
"And there wasn't a day go by this summer when I didn't think of him. I'd look at my daughter Sophia, she's 19 months old now, and I'd think of Chase, down at the rink with his kids ... how much he loved those kids.
"The funeral, everything ... it seems almost surreal now. And when his daughter went up to the big blow-up picture of Steve at the front of the church and said 'That's my daddy!', well, it just wrecked everybody. Crushing. Just crushing.
"It's still hard to accept, that he's gone."
"I remember Kevin Dineen coming upstairs, where we were playing pool, and telling us that Ron Francis was going to drive Chase home," recalled Ranheim. "And then somebody looked out the window and yelled 'Hey, he's leaving!' So Ron immediately got in his car, drove to Steve's house -- he must've driven right by the accident -- and didn't see his truck in the driveway.
"And Ronnie called on the cell phone and said 'He's not here!' I'll never forget that. Never.
"I think anyone who was there, at the end of that party, feels a bit of responsibility. What if? What if? You ask yourself that over and over. But someone was going to drive him home. He just ... left."
Never, tragically, to return.
Yet if impact, imprint, count for anything, a long time from now, Steve Chiasson will be far more than a footnote to those who new him.
"You know how people say someone's gone but not forgotten?" said Ranheim.
"Well, to me, to all of us I think it's safe to say, Chase will never be forgotten. And if that's the case, I don't really think he's ever going to be 'gone', either."
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