<p><em>Calgary Flames assistant general manager Chris Snow, 42, will be laid to rest on Thursday after an awe-inspiring, four-year battle with ALS.&nbsp;Snow forever changed the Flames, the ALS community, and the lives in which he lives on as an organ donor.</em></p>



<p><em>Here is ‘Snowy’ through the eyes and words of his former manager and current Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving:</em></p>



<p>The hockey world is small. People talk. And I didn’t know Chris Snow when I arrived in Calgary in 2014, but I had heard of him. You knew the name because of his unique background – a sportswriter that had gotten into the hockey side.</p>



<p>I came into Calgary with a 30-day plan. I wanted to watch everyone work and make some assessments. It didn’t take me long to realize that we had a star on our hands in Snowy.</p><div class="injected-ad injected-video" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="0" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="141"></div>



<p>We spent 30-45 minutes in our first meeting. He laid out what he does, but he said, “Here’s how I think I can do more.” I remember he walked out the door and I’m thinking: “I have no idea what all he does, but I just know he’s it. That is a really smart guy.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>When I got there, he was a little bit of a ‘jack of all trades’ guy. He didn’t have a true job description. He worked with the coaching staff. He had done some contract prep work for ‘Burkie’ [Brian Burke]. He was doing some data stuff, but we didn’t have a real data department yet. My goal was to build a data department and I said to Burkie: “We’ve got our guy.”</p>



<p>A lot of Snowy’s background was in baseball. He had a lot of contacts in baseball, he spent a lot of time in Boston, developed a relationship with Theo Epstein and those guys. We wanted to build our own database and at that time, databases were very prevalent in baseball. At that point, pretty much everyone in hockey had only used the scouting report filing system, RinkNet. We wanted to create our own product that encompassed everything from scouting reports, incorporated video, incorporated our data analysis so that everything was at our fingertips. We started out with this grandiose idea of what it would look like at the end, and I didn’t quite know how we were going to get there, but he did. Snowy said: “What you want is exactly what I’ve been looking at and researching and thinking about.”</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="1" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="268"></div>



<p>There was this thing about Chris. He was very conscious that with his background, he felt like he was kind of an outsider. We talked about it a lot at the beginning, but he always felt that he needed to prove himself – because he didn’t play, because he didn’t grow up in the game. You have to remember, this was 2014, still really at the forefront of analytics in hockey. Not every team was doing this stuff yet. He’s sitting there at the table with the ‘old’ hockey guys, scouts, coaches, assistant GMs who had lived the game.</p>



<p>Snowy always had strong opinions. He felt like he needed to prove himself, but he didn’t. It didn’t take him too long to win over everyone. He didn’t try to prove himself by being the loudest guy in the room or belittling anybody else. He was never confrontational. In any type of meeting or presentation, he felt the best way to back up his words was with evidence to support his work.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="2" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="171"></div>



<p>Chris just had great bedside manner. Part of it was his style, right? He had great delivery, he is an unbelievable speaker. You could always have a different opinion than Snowy, but you could never argue that his wasn’t backed up with some evidence that you could feel and touch and witness. That was how he built credibility.</p>



<p>He also wanted to be out in the field, out in the rinks, so scouts could see him. He loved going on trips. He said: “My credibility isn’t going to be that I played, my credibility is going to be that I’ve put in the work, that the things I bring to the table are based in knowledge. I’m not going to be a guy that looks at a computer and the numbers spit out something, but I watched the game.” It wasn’t just the computer is telling us one thing, the data is telling us one thing, but he married the two together with video and brought it to life.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="3" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="169"></div>



<p>We started to let people know that Snowy was going to be involved in the decision making for the Calgary Flames and I think it became very evident because I relied on him for everything. I would consult with him before making decisions. We didn’t always agree, but some of my best debates were with Snowy. It became real clear to the staff that I greatly valued his opinion.</p>



<p>His role grew. He hired programmers. He built that database. We got him involved in negotiating contracts. Introducing him to the agent community was another proving ground, and I would get calls from agents after he spent some time with them, and they appreciated working with him. They may not have agreed with Snowy, but they knew he wasn’t just grabbing positions out of thin air.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="4" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="135"></div>



<p>But ALS was always an elephant in the room. We talked about it right from the beginning, in 2014. It probably wasn’t the first meeting, but it was early on in our relationship. We’d spend lots of time together in the office, getting to know each other, and we’d have discussions about family. I’d tell him about my daughters, he’d tell me about Cohen and Willa and his wife, Kelsie.</p>



<p>Long before he was diagnosed, he was very open to say – hey, this is something we’ve dealt with in my family. Chris was acutely aware that there was a chance. He is a numbers guy. He’s a percentages person. He knew that this was a possibility – and more than a possibility, that this could be a reality.</p>



<p>What a weight to carry around. You’re always trying to be positive. I’d say to him, “Snowy, you know this isn’t predestined, right?” But any time he had a muscle cramp or something, you knew it was in the back of his mind.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="5" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="172"></div>



<p>I’ll never forget when it all changed. It was 2019, we were in the playoffs, playing the Avalanche. We were at the hotel in Denver, working out in the gym at the hotel. I was on the treadmill and he dropped a weight. I remember it hitting the ground. He complained that he didn’t have any strength in his elbow. And then we talked after and later that day, he said, “You know, there’s something to this.” And I thought, it could be a million things. It could be a pinched nerve. He saw the doctor and they said this might be an ulnar nerve issue, and I tried to convince myself it was that.</p>



<p>After the playoffs, he went to the University of Miami for a battery of tests. It was up and down the whole time, and I’m just praying to God. And then he called one day with the news, and it was just like your heart falls out of your chest.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="6" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="165"></div>



<p>At the time of his diagnosis, doctors gave Chris a timeframe, they said six months to a year. It was an aggressive form of ALS. The words the doctors used were: “Do whatever brings you joy.”</p>



<p>By now, it was around the time of the Draft, which was in Vancouver that year. He flew from Miami right to Vancouver. So he had just gotten this news and within days, he’s at the Draft. Seeing him for the first time, and it happened for four and a half years after that, you look at him and you don’t know what to say.</p>



<p>He walked into our room at the Draft, and I gave him a hug and you just want to fall over on the floor. And he just goes right into the Draft. “What are we doing? Who are we picking?” We’d had a good year and we were picking late. At that point in the scouting process, we had a couple of guys that we had circled, and the guy from his department that he graded out highly was Jakob Pelletier. Sure enough, however the Draft plays out, we take Pelletier and he was a big proponent.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="7" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="198"></div>



<p>You could tell the change around Chris was immediate. Kelsie, Cohen and Willa were at the Draft in Vancouver and they decided to drive back to Calgary. It was an easy flight, but they wanted to spend time and go through the Rocky Mountains. It was one of those moments that set in for me.</p>



<p>My message to him was pretty clear. I told him at the Draft that the least important thing in the world was the Calgary Flames. “Snowy, forget about this, this is the last thing you need to worry about, go spend time with your family.” And so we had that first conversation and then many times regularly after that, and he would push back hard.</p>



<p>He’d say: “Do not take this away from me. You have to trust me. Yes, I’m not going to miss anything with my family, but I’m not going to sit at home and look at my four walls all day. The kids are in school. Am I just going to sit there and think about this disease? I need this. I need to keep my mind active. This does bring me joy, this is my passion.”</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="8" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="196"></div>



<p>I really became protective of him. We had a couple discussions and there was some profanity. He’d be going through something and I’d start taking stuff off of his plate. There was never a point where the work wasn’t getting done, or his health affected his work, I just didn’t want him to have to worry about that stuff. But of course, Snowy knows exactly what he should be involved in, and I can’t remember which contract it was, but he’d had enough.</p>



<p>Snowy said: “I would normally do this and you haven’t even asked me about it. Stop it. Knock it off.” And that’s when we really had the conversation, it got a little hot. He said to me: “You have to trust me. I appreciate it, I love you, I know you’re doing this for me, but you have to trust me Brad that when it gets to be too much, I’ll tell you. But you have to let me make that call.” &nbsp;</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="9" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="166"></div>



<p>What he went through was incredible. In a short period of time after his diagnosis, he found out that he qualified for a clinical trial. Every month, he would fly to Toronto and get this spinal tap injection. That brought a lot of hope, but the hard part about being in a trial is you don’t know if you’re getting the trial drug or a placebo. I couldn’t handle that. You know, I want to make some calls and find out, I’m thinking “Someone needs to tell us here, this is bullshit. How could they not tell us.” And he’s like “Brad, this is how a clinical trial works.” He would fly to Toronto, then wait a couple weeks, and there would be no progression. You would want to celebrate, but it took a while to learn that yes, he was actually getting the drug and it was working.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="10" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="149"></div>



<p>And then COVID hit. He’s got this program, and it’s clearly working, and he needs to fly to Toronto for these doses but there were all of these restrictions with both flying and hospitals. It was one thing after another. No matter the obstacle, he’d always find a way.</p>



<p>In quiet moments alone, I was just devastated. You think about him, you think about his kids, you think about his wife. But I could never let myself go there, I could never let myself get down in front of him. We’d joke about it, but he’d always say “Somebody’s got to beat it. Somebody is going to be the first.” There was never any negativity around Chris, he was always just pushing along.</p>



<p>As ALS would start to progress, it would present different challenges. He couldn’t use his hand, then he couldn’t use his other hand, then he couldn’t talk. But he never focused on that. He had the equipment manager make him a brace that he put on his hand that supported him and allowed him to keep typing. I always joked with him that it was his bowling glove. We did a little renovation to his office to give him more space, a couch that he could lie down. He would lay down and take calls from agents.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="11" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="220"></div>



<p>The next big thing was he needed a feeding tube. With each challenge that came physically, he just put his mind to a solution. There was never a pity party of what he lost, it was always a workaround to keep going.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As much as ALS is a heinous fucking disease, it never attacked his spirit, it never attacked his attitude. It never attacked his compassion, his will, his fight. Nothing. I know I couldn’t have done that with the positivity and humor he found in it. We’d be in a meeting talking about a player, and it would be a player he didn’t like, but he would text me during the meeting.</p>



<p>The message would pop up on my phone and there was always this Snowy wit: “<em>You’re so lucky I can’t talk right now. The words I would use if I could talk right now would bring you to tears.</em>”</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="12" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="152"></div>



<p>One of the last messages I have from him was his excitement about some new technology, a no-click mouse that helped, or a head tracking device on his iPad that allowed him to type with his eyes. That’s how he always was: I’m going to get through this.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There were some scares along the way. Around last Christmas, he was in the hospital for a good chunk of time. In typical Chris fashion, he bounced back, he got through it, and he was back at the rink. I think you always believed he’d find way.</p>



<p>When I got the call from Kelsie a couple weeks ago, with the news that his heart stopped and the prognosis wasn’t good, I got on a plane. I sat with him and Kelsie for a while. It was difficult to watch. It was gut-wrenching. Then I got some time alone with him.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="13" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="148"></div>



<p>There was a part of me that felt a peacefulness. He was resting. I just kept thinking about all of the times that I walked by his office to see him grinding away, you’d see him go through all of these awful things. The physical and mental hurdles. I watched him fight for so hard for so long. I held his hand. He didn’t need to worry about his body letting him down anymore. He deserved rest.</p>



<p>I poured a stiff one for Snowy, and turned up “Terry’s Song” by Bruce Springsteen. You know, we all wonder what we would do with our situation, how we would handle it. In the office we’d joke with Snowy, we all thought we were these big tough guys because we played. But he was the toughest of them all.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="14" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="136"></div>



<p><em>— as told to Frank Seravalli.</em></p>
