It's Me, and I Can't Get Myself to Go Away

Before using Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” in a tragic situation, please listen to the song.

It’s the farthest thing from a song for mourning.

Boogey changed the pronunciation of his name

it’s pronounced Bo-guard, but he changed it to Boo-guard because he enjoyed the Boogeyman persona on the ice.

If you haven’t get, read Michael Russo’s tribute: (for those who don’t know, Michael Russo is a beat writer in Minnesota and he was very close to Boogey)

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/121826023.html

Ex-Wild player Derek Boogaard found dead in Minneapolis apartment

Members of the Wild family were hit hard Friday night when it was learned that Derek Boogaard, dubbed the “Boogie Man” during his days policing the ice at Xcel Energy Center, was found dead Friday in his Minneapolis apartment by members of his family.

The New York Rangers enforcer was 28.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” said goaltender Niklas Backstrom, who sat six feet away from Boogaard in the Wild locker room for four years. “It’s really hard. Unreal guy. Great friend and an awesome teammate. Just a really big teddy bear. Outside the rink, he didn’t want bad for anyone.

“If you don’t know him, if you just know him by what he does on the ice, you don’t know how great he is. Smiling every day. At the rink, I don’t think he was mad at anyone ever.”

Boogaard, from Regina, Saskatchewan, had spent the past week in Los Angeles with his brother, Aaron, a minor-league hockey player. In a text message to the Star Tribune on Thursday, Boogaard said he had just met with a public relations firm and planned to start a Twitter account.

He was ecstatic to be returning to Minnesota, where he was going to be joined by his other brother, Ryan, a Royal Canadian Mountie in Saskatchewan.

Boogaard also is survived by his mother, Joanne, father, Len, and younger sister, Krysten, a basketball player at the University of Kansas.

“Derek was an extremely kind and caring individual,” Rangers General Manager Glen Sather said in a statement. “He was a very thoughtful person, who will be dearly missed by all those who knew him. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family, friends and teammates during this difficult time.”

The news was stunning. The big, tough, 6-8 bruiser with an even bigger sense of humor planned to spend his summer in Minneapolis after a trying first season in New York.

Boogaard was limited to 22 games because of a concussion.

In a text message to the Star Tribune last week, Boogaard said he “disappointed a lot of people. So I gotta work my [butt] off this summer so I can get back to what I was doing in Minny, you know?”

In a statement, the Wild said, “Derek was a fan favorite during his five seasons with the Wild and will be greatly missed here in Minnesota and throughout the NHL. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Boogaard family during this tragic time of loss.”

Backstrom just couldn’t get over the news.

“He’d come to the rink always so happy,” Backstrom said. “He enjoyed the game, he enjoyed life. Even on the ice, he had such a tough role. I look at those guys, and I don’t know how they do it. But every day, he did it, and if he wasn’t the best, he was one of the best.:

In 255 games with the Wild, Boogaard had 54 fights and amassed 544 penalty minutes.

On Nov. 9, 2010, Boogaard scored his first goal since Jan. 7, 2006 — or 1,768 days — to end the longest goal drought in NHL history in a loss to Washington. In a text to the Star Tribune, Boogaard wrote, “I finally got it drilled into my head, I gotta shoot more like [Brian] Rolston!”

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wild/121813554.html