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| The poem was done by Stump's youngest son, Blair Macnab |
It is hard to describe how much this man meant to me, he was my hero, a professional hockey player who like any good Canadian boy had turned down an offer from the the Yankees to play Canada's national sport. He was an all round athlete, a scratch golfer, a switch hitting baseball catcher and a solid defense man on anyone's blue line. He came by his nickname, Stump, because running into him on the ice was a lot like hitting a stump, he wasn't moving, so you might be able to go around him, or over him, but you sure weren't going through him.
But that was only a small part of the man, although playing hockey took him away from school at an early age, he was one of the wisest people I knew. He knew the value of a good day's work wasn't measured in dollars. He parlayed that wisdom and hard work into a pretty successful farming business after he hung up his skates when his kids started school.
I spent many weekends and a few summers on the farm, living with my grandparents, and hanging around with my cousins down the road and credit him with a lot of life long lessons, about life and important things, like how to set a solid gate post, how to treat people.
I will miss his quiet wisdom, his chuckle that rumbled quietly from deep in his chest, the sparkle in his eyes, and that "you can do it" attitude of his.
