WHL loses player to brain injury

THE MacBETH REPORT:

F Riley Holzapfel (Moose Jaw, 2004-08) signed a two-year contract with HV71 Jönköping (Sweden, SHL — formerly known as Elitserien). He had 21 goals and 30 assists in 76 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (AHL) last season. . . .

 D T.J. Fast (Tri-City, 2006-08) signed a one-year contract with Eispiraten Crimmitschau (Germany, 2. Bundesliga). He had one assist in 17 games with the Bakersfield Condors (ECHL) last season.
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The WHL has lost another player to brain injury-related problems.
Shea Howorko, a forward with the Swift Current Broncos, has had to retire.
“My career is done . . . unfortunately,” he told me via Facebook on Thursday.
Howorko, a 19-year-old from Regina, was a second-round selection by the Broncos in the 2009 bantam draft.
He had three points in 61 games as a freshman in 2010-11, but was limited to 30 games — he had four points — in 2011-12. He wasn’t able to play at all last season. In fact, he last played on Dec. 3, 2011.
“The only thing that’s scared me is if it could be permanent, if I could never play hockey again,” Howorko told Brad Brown of the Prairie Post in December 2012. “That’s my goal, is I want to come back and play. What’s scary is that it could take out my career. I try to keep hope every single day.”
If you want to get a feel for what Howorko has gone through, read this Dec. 6 story by Brown.
(Tip of the hat to @saskawhat for the tweet.)
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F Jaimen Yakubowski of the Lethbridge Hurricanes will attend the Detroit Red Wings’ prospects camp that begins Saturday in Traverse City, Mich. Yakubowski, 19, had 50 points, including 32 goals, in 66 games last season, his second in the WHL. He is from Dalmeny, Sask., and is represented by Turning Point Sports Management.
As well, D Matt Staples of the Medicine Hat Tigers is in the Dallas Stars’ prospects camp. From Coppell, Texas, he had three points in 30 games with the Tigers as a freshman last season.
Red Deer Rebels F Matt Bellerive, who turns 19 on July 12, will go to camp with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ prospects. Bellerive, who played two WHL seasons with the Vancouver Giants before being dealt to Red Deer, is from North Vancouver. He had 36 points, 15 of them goals, in 69 games last season.
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 If you haven’t already read Cold a Long Time: An Alpine Mystery, you absolutely must. It is the story of the disappearance of former Saskatoon Blades defenceman Duncan MacPherson and the heart-wrenching situations his parents found themselves in as they searched for him. . . . If you haven’t read it, order it right here. I promise you that you won’t be sorry. This is one of those reads that will stay with you for a long, long time. . . . There is a solid review of it right here.
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Somehow, I missed this terrific read right here on the Aaron Hernandez situation. It was written by Charles P. Pierce of Grantland.com. And even though it was written before Hernandez ws arrested, it’s well worth your time.
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Jerry Brewer of the Seattle Times writes right here that his city’s motto “should be something like: Always the robbed, never the robber.” . . . Still, he feels Seattle has gained a lot despite being used as leverage by the NBA and NHL.
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There were 40,000 people in attendance Thursday as Joey Chestnut won his seventh straight Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating championship on Coney Island, N.Y. The New York Daily News was there, too, and reported that Chestnut, who ate 69 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, “ate 20,010 calories, 1,173 grams of fat and 48,990 miligrams of sodium.” . . . According to the Post, “A normal American . . . is supposed to consume 2,000 calories a day, and no more than 200 grams of fat or 2,300 milligrams of salt.” . . . Chew on that for a while.
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THE COACHING GAME:
Philippe Boucher is scheduled to be introduced Monday as the new general manager and head coach of the QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts. He takes over from Patrick Roy, now the head coach of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. Roy also owns a piece of the Remparts. . . . Boucher spent the past two seasons as vice-president of hockey operations and general manager of the Rimouski Oceanic. . . . Rimouski, meanwhile, added the GM’s portfolio to head coach Serge Beausoleil’s duties. . . .

Stephane Paquette of Acadie Nouvelle reported last night that Darren Rumble will be introduced today as head coach of the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats. . . . Rumble has spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach with the Seattle Thunderbirds.
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From Brent Parker (@Patguy65): “Hey @CityofRegina would it kill you to throw some lines on the roads around town. I'm unemployed give me a can of paint and ill do it!”


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If you aren’t aware, John Leake is the author of Cold a Long Time: An Alpine Mystery.
The book is the story of parents searching for the truth about what happened to their son.
Duncan MacPherson was a former Saskatoon Blades’ defenceman who was embarking on what he hoped would be a coaching career in Scotland when he chose to tour Europe for a bit.
He never made it to Scotland. His body later was found on an Austrian glacier.
In between MacPherson’s departure from Canada in the summer of 1989 and the discovery of his body there were 14 years and a whole lot of intrigue and incompetence.
Leake appeared on a live Twitter chat on Friday. Here are some of his comments . . .
This is the key question – were his injuries caused by a fall and ice movement or by something else connected with a human. . . .
The parents suspected some form of culpability, though they weren't sure if it was intentional. The crime is concealment. . . .
Duncan's body had sustained sharp force trauma to three of his limbs, and the amputated limbs were found with his body. . . .
It is important to understand that NO information was offered to the parents. They had to repeatedly ask for everything they got. . . .
Hinterhoelzl maintains he assumed that Duncan forgot his clothing in the ski school office. . . .
Dr. Rabl told the parents that – according to the radiologist – the CT scan indicated no signs of violence to the body. . . .
When the parents heard this from Rabl, they decided to have the body cremated. Later they became aware of the chopped up limbs. . . .
In 1989, Canadian External Affairs withheld information from the MacPhersons indicating that Duncan had died on the ski slope. . . .
The MacPhersons asked me to investigate and write a book about this case because it is so incredibly convoluted and confusing. . . .
The Canadian government has been ineffectual at best. . . .
It is impossible to explain what happened in any form of conversation. Only a comprehensive narrative can make it understandable. . . .
It would have been very easy to determine the cause and manner of Duncan's death if the authorities had WANTED to do so. . . .
Our only hope for getting some kind of justice for the MacPherson family is through public awareness of the story. . . .
So far, the MacPherson's efforts to obtain clarity and redress have been successfully blocked by Austrian authorities. . . .
The Innsbruck public officials who participated in this cover-up should be severely punished.
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If you haven’t already read Cold A Long Time, you should. If you can’t find it in a book store, check out this website.
But be forewarned . . . as you read this book, you will get angrier and angrier because as much as it is a book about a search for truth, it is a book about injustice.
There are some people out there who need to look in a mirror and then speak up about whatever it was that happened to Duncan MacPherson.
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THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Taggart Desmet (seven games with Calgary, 2000-01) signed a one-year contract with Meran (Italy, Serie A2). He had 10 goals and 23 assists in 43 games with Valpellice (Italy, Serie A) last season.
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The Vancouver Giants had four goaltenders on their roster as they prepared to play an exhibition game against the Kamloops Blazers in Ladner, B.C., on Friday night. That list got whittled to three early in the day when Jackson Whistle, 17, was dealt to the Kelowna Rockets for a 2013 third-round bantam draft pick.
Whistle, who is from Kelowna, played the last half of the Giants’ 7-4 loss to the Blazers, giving up four goals on 16 shots.
Whistle got into 21 games with the Giants last season. He was 1-7-3 as a starter. Overall, he was 3.61, .873. In Kelowna, he will work as the backup to Jordon Cooke, 19, who takes over from the graduated Adam Brown.
Whistle was a fourth-round selection in the 2010 bantam draft. There was time when he and Payton Lee, a second-round pick in 2011, were seen as the future of the Giants’ goaltending.
That obviously won’t happen, but Lee, 16, remains in camp, along with Liam Liston, 19, and Tyler Fuhr, 17.
Liston was acquired over the summer from the Lethbridge Hurricanes, while Fuhr, from Sherwood Park, Alta., perhaps has been the biggest surprise in camp. He’s a walk-on who has been terrific. He started Wednesday’s 7-4 loss to the Blazers in Kamloops and stopped 15 of 17 shots over the first half. The Giants gave up quite a few odd-man breaks and Fuhr kept them close. Whistle played the second half, giving up four goals on 16 shots.
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The Saskatoon Blades are down to three 20-year-olds after having released veteran F Chris Collins.
That move leaves the Blades with D Connor Dox, F Josh Nicholls and F Brendan Walker as the 20s.
Collins, from Calgary, was acquired from the Chilliwack Bruins (remember them?) during 2010-11. With the Blades, he had 67 points, including 25 goals, in 112 games. Last season, Collins put up 26 points in 56 games with the Blades. In his career, he has 108 points in 200 regular-season games.
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JUST NOTES: F Burke Gallimore (Spokane, Saskatoon, Seattle, 2006-12) has decided to attend the U of Alberta and play for the Golden Bears. Gallimore, who is from Edmonton, put up 198 points in 289 regular-season games. In four full seasons, he missed only four games. . . . The MJHL’s Dauphin Kings have traded F Neil Tarnasky, 20, to the AJHL’s Drayton Valley Thunder for future considerations. He had seven points in 112 games with the Lethbridge Hurricanes (2009-11). . . . F Jesse Mychan, 20, in his first game since severing an Achilles tendon in the first round of last spring’s playoffs, scored twice but his Tri-City Americans lost 4-3 in a shootout to the Seattle Thunderbirds in a Friday game at the Americans’ annual Red Lions Hotels tournament. . . . Among Brandon’s scratches for Friday’s home game against the Regina Pats were F Dominick Favreau (back), F Jayce Hawryluk (concussion), F Jens Meilleur (back) and D Ryley Miller (ill). The Wheat Kings beat the Pat, 5-3. . . . Regina was without F Dryden Hunt, who suffered a concussion in Regina’s 3-1 victory over visiting Brandon on Thursday night.
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The first paragraph of a Friday press release from the QMJHL:
“The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League today announced that Michel Bergeron and Marc Lachapelle are the honorary co-presidents of the Ambassadors Club Golf Tournament. They will lead the honorary foursome at the Boucherville Golf Club this September 19th with Gilles Courteau, QMJHL Commissioner and Guy Darveau, President of the Ambassadors Club.”
That brought a real smile to my face. Bergeron, of course, is a veteran of hockey’s coaching wars, while Lachapelle, a legendary hockey writer, first covered the QMJHL in 1971.
The three of us came into the same orbit at the 1979 Memorial Cup that was held in Montreal and environs. Bergeron was the head coach of the QMJHL-champion Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. Lachapelle was covering the tournament for Le Journal de Montreal. I was there covering the WHL-champion Brandon Wheat Kings for the Brandon Sun.
And when I asked Bergeron a question in English, he chose to reply in French. In fact, I don’t recall him speaking English at all in post-game situations.
Thankfully, Lachapelle bailed me out by showing up at my hotel and offering his translation of the proceedings.
Which is just another reason why Lachapelle always will be remembered as one of the good ones.
Merci, mon ami!
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The tweet of the day comes from F Chase Witala (@chasewitala) of the Prince George Cougars: “Picking up a locker with @alexforsberg27 hopefully we don't have any flies living in there this year”
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The Vancouver Giants will have three — count ’em: one, two, three — radio play-by-play voices this season. They have signed on with Team 1040/1410 and will have their games called by Jeff Paterson, Blake Price and Alex Grebenyuk. . . . The Giants announced Friday that Paterson and Price will alternate in calling home games. It has been known for a while that Grebenyuk would do all the road games. Grebenyuk is the Giants’ new director of media relations and broadcasting. . . . Paterson called Kamloops Blazers came from 1994-99. He was the Blazers’ voice in 1994-95 when they won the Memorial Cup under head coach Don Hay, who now is the head coach of the Giants. . . . According to a Giants’ news release, “Bill Wilms will continue to serve as the primary colour commentator for both home and away broadcasts.” . . . Also according to that news release: “At this point, of the 72 regular-season Giants games, 33 will be broadcast on TEAM 1040, 37 will be broadcast on TEAM 1410, and two will be available online only (due to scheduling conflicts) at www.teamradio.ca The Giants' final broadcast schedule is subject to change.” . . . Dan Elliott, who handled play-by-play and media relations for the last two seasons for the Giants, and the club parted company after last season. He now is UBC Athletics’ manager, media relations.
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Congratulations to old friend Graham Tuer, who has a whole lot of friends in the hockey fraternity. He will be inducted into the Regina Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 4.
Here’s how the Regina Leader-Post summed up Tuer’s accomplishments:
“Involved in hockey for 50-plus years . . . coached and/or managed hockey teams at every level of minor and junior hockey in Saskatchewan . . . member of Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League board since 1982 . . . helped create provincial hockey's development model in 2007 . . . involved in Western Prospects development camp – served as assistant general manager/director of player personnel with WHL's Regina Pats . . . manager of Regina Pat Canadians for national championship in 1987-88 . . . scouted for numerous WHL teams and NHL Central Scouting . . . Regina Pats ‘builder recognition’ in 2008 . . . WHL Distinguished Service Award in 2009-10 - SaskSport volunteer of the year in 2008 . . . Hockey Regina bantam AA tournament named in his honour in 2007.”
At the same time, the Pat Canadians also will be inducted.
Here’s the Leader-Post on the Pat Canadians:
“Finished atop SMAAAHL regular-season standings with 26-2-0 record . . . Tim Iannone, Len Nielsen, Brett Burlock, Brent Fedyk, Troy Volhoffer and Selmar Odelein placed first to sixth in league scoring . . . coached by Bill Liskowich and Barry Trapp . . . support staff of Stew MacDonald (manager), Ron Blerot (trainer), Todd Liskowich and Trevor Dillabough (assistant trainers) – other team members: Kelly Murphy, Darren Hector, Brad Obrigewitsch, Mike Brannen, Curtis Fayant, Frank Joo, Kevin Herom, Dean Shaw, Jim Ruhland, Brian Wilkie and Kenton Rein . . . beat Notre Dame in league final . . . advanced to 12-team Air Canada Cup in Ste. Foye, Que., where 3-2 record put them into playoffs . . . defeated Toronto Don Mills 4-3 in quarterfinal, Thunder Bay 6-2 in semifinal and Ste. Foye 5-4 in final, with Nielsen scoring at 18: 21 and 19: 22 of third period in come-from-behind victory.”
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F Juraj Bezuch, who played last season with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, now is with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. He had been in camp with the Kitchener Rangers, but was swapped on Friday, along with a conditional 2013 sixth-round draft pick, for F Nick Czinder, 20, D Jeff Braithwaite, 20, and a 2014 seventh-round draft pick. . . . Braithwaite may not report as he has said he is going to focus on school. . . . Bezuch, from Slovakia, turns 19 on Dec. 20. He had 21 points in 67 games with Lethbridge last season but was released at season’s end. Kitchener selected him in the second round of the CHL‘s 2012 import draft. . . . Windsor immediately waived F Vlad Ionin, a Russian, who was the 15th pick in the 2012 import draft.

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THE MacBETH REPORT:
D Clinton Atkinson (Moose Jaw, Tri-City, 2008-11) signed a one-year contract with Miskolci Jegesmedve (Hungary, MOL Liga). He had nine goals and 50 assists in 60 games with Coquitlam Express (BCHL) last season. The new head coach in Miskolc is Tim Kehler, who was GM and head coach of Salmon Arm (BCHL) the past two seasons and was an assistant coach in Swift Current for three seasons prior to moving to Salmon Arm.
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Something is rotten in Innsbruck.
So writes John Leake in what is, in fact, an additional chapter to the already published book Cold a Long Time: An Alpine Mystery.
If you are a regular here, you will recall that a short time ago I highly recommended Leake’s book, which deals with the disappearance of former Saskatoon Blades D Duncan MacPherson and the subsequent trials and tribulations with which his parents, Lynda and Bob, had to deal as they sought the truth about what had happened to their son.
With this piece — Something is rotten in Innsbruck — Leake revisits three other cases, each of which involved a body and each of which also involved Dr. Walter Rabl, the president of the Austrian Society of Forensic Medicine.
Lynda and Bob MacPherson dealt quite a lot with Dr. Rabl who, as Leake found out once he began looking into the situation, wasn’t nearly everything he had pretended to be.
Read this right here and you will agree that, yes, something is rotten in Innsbruck. Really, really rotten. And if you haven’t yet read the book, do so. You won’t be disappointed.
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THE COACHING GAME:
Rob Miller is the new head coach of the Augusta RiverHawks of the Southern Professional Hockey League. He takes over from Brad Ralph, who now is head coach of the ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads. . . . Miller, 33, spent the last two seasons as head coach of the Federeal league’s Brooklyn Aviators. . . .
Marc Crawford is leaving the TSN studio to go back behind the bench. He has signed on as head coach of the ZSC Lions, who play out of Zurich in the Swiss National League A. He most recently coached in the NHL with the Dallas Stars, who dropped him after the 2010-11 season. . . . Crawford replaces Bob Hartley, who left the Lions to take over as head coach of the NHL’s Calgary Flames.
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Now here is a giant can of worms. . . .
Jacob  Trouba was the ninth overall selection in last month’s NHL draft. He was taken by the Winnipeg Jets.
Trouba was a third-round selection by the Kitchener Rangers in the OHL’s 2010 draft.
Trouba, meanwhile, has said he will attend the U of Michigan and play for the Wolverines.
Recently, however, there have been reports that Trouba is wavering and that he may join the Rangers.
On Monday, Matt Slovin of The Michigan Daily reported that a source has told him that “Kitchener has presented the Trouba family with a ‘huge offer’ that remains on the table. The source added that he ‘believes it will happen.’ ”
According to Slovin, “In place of an education package, the source said Trouba could be compensated to about $200,000.”
Slovin’s piece is right here.
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F Marek Tvrdon of the Vancouver Giants has signed with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. He was a fourth-round selection in the NHL’s 2011 draft. A natural scorer, Tvrdon, 19, had 74 points, including 31 goals, with the Giants last season. In 2010-11, he had 11 points in 12 games when a shoulder injury brought his season to an end. Tvrdon is from Nitra, Slovakia.
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Brent Sutter has been an NHL head coach for the last five seasons. Right now, however, he is unemployed. Should that continue into the 2012-13 season, Sutter says he will help out with the management side of the Red Deer Rebels, the WHL franchise that he and his family own.
“We’ve always had good people in place here and I’m going to help Jesse (Wallin, the Rebels’ GM and head coach) out with the management part,” Sutter told Greg Meachem, the sports editor of the Red Deer Advocate.
Sutter also told Meachem that the time has come for the Rebels “to get back on board as far as making the playoffs” and “back to being a elite team in the league.”
Meachem’s story is right here.
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He’s 47 years old and estimates that he was knocked unconscious about 100 times during his football career.
John Glennon of The Tennessean has more right here.
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Howie Meeker was in Vernon, B.C., the other day and had some interesting things to say to Kevin Mitchell of the Vernon Morning Star.
On the L.A. Kings winning the Stanley Cup: “I was kind of delighted they won. I was disappointed that the Canadian clubs weren’t in there until the end. I think what they’ve done is really changed the whole history of the game. Defence now comes way, way ahead of offence.”
On skill versus size: “Here in Canada and the rest of the world, we’re not developing enough skilled hockey players to sell the game on speed, skill and finesse. So, if I draft anywhere after 10, I don’t get anything but big, tough, hard-working, honest guys. They’ve taken over.”
On shot-blocking coming to dominate the game: “An ant couldn’t crawl through (the scrums in front). Guys are making millions of dollars a year by being a target in a shootin’ gallery. God bless ’em. They’re crazy but it’s spoiled the game.”
On Don Cherry: “Nobody can give him advice so as long as he wants to stay there, let him stay there. I don’t watch him. I admire him for what he does. He’s got a circus act going, him and his buddy (Ron MacLean) and he’s got a great following but I wanna know what’s going on out on the ice, I don’t wanna know about his buddies and all this other baloney. I don’t think he’s done anything for the game of hockey, but he’s done well for himself.”
Mitchell’s complete story is right here.


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Whatever happened to Duncan MacPherson?

When author John Leake set out to tell the story of the disappearance of Duncan MacPherson, it is doubtful that his intention was to write a love story.
But that is exactly what he penned with Cold A Long Time: An Alpine Mystery.
Oh, this isn’t a love story of the Erich Segal or Harlequin Romance variety.
Rather, it is the story of the love between a mother and her son, and it is unlike any such story you will have read before now.
MacPherson, a native of Saskatoon, was a terrific defenceman through three seasons (1983-86) with his hometown Blades. In his third season, he had 64 points and 147 penalty minutes in 70 games. Yes, he could play on the power play; yes, he had his teammates’ backs.
The New York Islanders liked this good, honest hockey player enough that they took him with the 20th overall selection in the NHL’s 1984 draft.
MacPherson never got to the NHL, however, and after four mostly injury-plagued seasons in the minors, his contract wasn’t renewed and he looked overseas.
In the early summer of 1989, MacPherson agreed to coach the Dundee Tigers, a team in Scotland owned by Ron Dixon, a big talker who also had ties to the WHL (he had been involved in the ownership of the New Westminster Bruins and Tri-City Americans).
However, before reporting to the Tigers, MacPherson chose to do some travelling in Europe.
On Aug. 4, 1989, MacPherson visited George Pesut, a former Blades star, who was in Nuremberg, Germany. MacPherson called home and said he would phone again in 10 days.
That phone call never came.
On Aug. 8, 1989, MacPherson left the home of Roger Kortko, another former Blades star, in Fuessen, Germany, and headed south into Austria.
None of his friends or family heard from him again.
In Saskatoon, Lynda MacPherson, Duncan’s mother, felt something was wrong as early as Aug. 11, 1989. That was the night she awoke from a deep sleep and found herself screaming.
She and her husband, Bob, driven by Lynda’s undying love for her son, would spend the next 14 years working to find out what had happened.
Duncan’s corpse was discovered on July 18, 2003.
Even after that, the MacPhersons, spearheaded by Lynda’s bulldogedness and her driving need to learn what had happened, spent another seven-plus years pushing, pulling and grinding away as they attempted to get to the truth.
All told, the MacPhersons would spend more than 20 years on the trail of what had happened. They used up a lot of their retirement savings, most of their energy and about a third of their lives as they fought to find out what had happened to their son, who was 23 years of age that summer of 1989.
Duncan, as it turned out, had stopped at the Stubai Glacier, a major recreation area outside Innsbruck, Austria, for a snowboarding experience. It was there that he was last seen and where the car he had been driving was found on Sept. 20, 1989. The car, a red Opel, had been sitting in a parking lot at the glacier for about six weeks without anyone noticing it or, at least, without anyone reporting it to the authorities.
Strange?
That was only the beginning of the story, one that would be filled with untruths and obfuscation and a whole lot of people talking in circles for a long, long time.
At one point, before even the red Opel had been discovered, the MacPhersons visited the Canadian Consulate in Munich in the hopes of getting some help. An official there told a receptionist: “I don’t care how you do it, just get rid of those people.”
And then there was the official at the Canadian Embassy in Vienna who told them: “I think you and your family should get on with your lives. Life is for the living.”
That was just as the MacPherson’s odyssey was beginning, about 14 years before their son's body was even found.
Little did authorities in Austria and in various Canadian government agencies understand that you simply could not get between this mother and her need to find out what had happened to her son.
Leake is an American writer who lived in Austria for 10 years. It was that connection that attracted the MacPhersons to him when they were looking for someone they hoped would investigate their story and then turn it into a book.
Through Leake, the MacPhersons came to understand the importance of the Stubai Glacier to the economic viability of that area of Austria and how there would seem to have been a coverup involving the death of their son.
To provide more details, would be to spoil what is a solid and heart-breaking read. But here is a hint of what went on — authorities indicated to the MacPhersons that Duncan’s body had been found in a crevasse in an area that was out of bounds to area skiers and snowboarders; in truth, the body was found in the middle of a ski slope, about 25 metres from a tow lift.
Near the end of this book, Lynda tells Leake: “You may think I’m boasting, John. But I’m not afraid of anyone.”
It turns out that Duncan once suggested to Lynda, a smallish woman, that because of her size, or lack of it, she should perhaps work at being a little less confrontational.
“And I told him that size doesn’t make the man,” Lynda said.
Or, in this case, the woman.
Because as much as this book details the quest to learn what happened to Duncan MacPherson, it is just as much the story of Lynda’s love for her son, and how that love kept driving her on a search for the truth.
“To cease looking for him seemed like abandoning him, which was unspeakable,” Leake notes, adding “ ‘Don’t give up mom,’ she imagined him saying, and she knew that if it had been the other way around, he would never have given up trying to find her.”
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Leake has said that 25 per cent of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to Lynda and Bob MacPherson. The book is available right here.
It’s worth noting that Cold A Long Time won a bronze medal in the True Crime category of the 16th annual Independent Publisher Book Awards.
And right here is a trailer for Cold A Long Time, as narrated by Bill Paxton.
As well, there is a website right here that is dedicated to Cold A Long Time.
I guarantee that two things will happen as you read this book — you will shake your head in disbelief on more than one occasion, and you will wipe more than one tear off your cheeks.
This is a memorable book.

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