There never seems to be enough. Enough vacation days, enough coffee in the pot, enough cookies on cheat day. And there never seems to be enough time. Time is the one commodity that we can’t get back.
Today, this Dallas Stars fan wishes for more time, even if it’s just one more day, to hear the soothing sounds of Dave Strader calling Stars hockey.
He wasn’t with the team for very long, but he made the transition from long-time play-by-play announcer Ralph Strangis easier for many fans. He fit into the booth like a glove. He fit into the Stars family and community even more seamlessly, and became one of the guys we like to root for.
We were fortunate to have him as a part of our Stars gameday experience, even if it was painfully short. After being diagnosed with cancer at the end of the first season in Dallas, Strader continued to be part of the Stars family. He would tweet about the games as he watched from home, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he was healthy enough to call five games in a stretch this past spring. We had taken him in as one of us, and he had embraced the Stars fans just as closely.
Strader was always complimentary of the work we do here at Defending Big D. He was, in some ways, one of our biggest fans – he always took the time to share the good stuff to his followers. We are forever grateful for the support he showed us, and will never forget the impact he has had on the Stars community while he was here.
His work spans more than the Stars, but we feel his loss just as much as other fans that listened to him, whether it was a Detroit Red Wings game or a national game on NBCSN. Strader was widely respected in the hockey world, and they join us all in mourning his loss today. Hockey lost a good one – not just someone good at his craft, but a good man.
He was strong in his fight against cancer, bringing awareness to a disease that does not discriminate and is one of the most ruthless killers in the world. He was more than his disease, never letting it define him as a person.
It wasn’t enough time. It never is. Since he can’t continue his fight on this earth, we will. We won’t rest until there is a cure for such a terrible disease as cancer.
We will be #StraderStrong.