More and more details are starting to come out in regards to the untimely death of former NHL player Wade Belak, with the latest news coming straight from the enforcer's mother. Unsurprisingly, the story continues to get sadder.
Lorraine Belak spoke with CBC on Friday, and she confirmed an earlier report that her son did battle depression. However, she admitted that it was something that her and the family were hopeful and assumed was in the past.
Belak was found dead in a Toronto hotel room earlier this week, and the death is being investigated as a suicide, according to CBC.
"I think he was taking control of that," Lorraine Belak told CBC, also adding that she last spoke to Wade just three days before his death. She said that nothing was out of the ordinary and suspected nothing.
Belak's death is just the latest in a sad summer for the sport of hockey that has seen both Derek Boogaard and Rick Rypien pass away at young ages. Like Belak, Rypien also suffered from depression, something that actually led to a leave of absence for the former Vancouver Canuck.
Belak, like Boogaard and Rypien, played the role of an enforcer. The fact that these players share this is common is no something that is going unnoticed, but Belak's mother did admit it was what her son had to do to follow his dream of playing in the NHL.
"I'm sure he would have loved to have been the goal scorer on the team; however, his size and his toughness — in order to play in the NHL — that's what he had to," Belak's mother said.
She also said that, to her knowledge, Belak didn't have a history of concussions.
