Tom Hedican presents Mike Walker with a personally autographed photo of PK Subban. PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON. If you have ever been to a junior hockey game in North Bay, you have likely seen Mike Walker.

Tom Hedican presents Mike Walker with a personally autographed photo of PK Subban. PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON.

If you have ever been to a junior hockey game in North Bay, you have likely seen Mike Walker.

The avid hockey fan had his heart broken in early July when his Mcintyre street boarding home was destroyed by a fire, one of 15 people that were displaced due to the blaze.



The past month has been tough on the avid Montreal Canadiens fan, but the good will of Tom Hedican and Montreal Canadiens all-star defenceman PK Subban helped boost his spirits today.

Hedican, who is close friends with Subban’s agent, Mark Guy, saw a news article about Walker’s situation and immediately contacted Guy and made a request to get a special autographed photo of PK to present to Walker.

“A lot of people in North Bay stepped up to help all of the people that were displaced by the fire and Mike’s story was hockey related and being involved in hockey I just thought what could we do on top of that that might not be the same as putting clothes on his back and things like that, we wanted to do something to just brighten his day,” said Hedican.

So around 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon, Hedican made the trip to the PEP Place on Ferguson Street to surprise Walker. When Hedican made the presentation, Walker was definitely in awe.

“It made me the happiest man alive to get his picture with the autograph right on it, that’s hard to get,” said Walker, who also received a letter from the Newport Sports Agency to go along with the autographed 8 x 10 framed photo.

“To have that, I will cherish this forever and Montreal strong forever.”

Walker says Subban is his favourite player.

A lot of people don’t like him because he’s mouthy, but he just speaks his mind and tells it like it is,” he said.

“That’s the kind of player that I like.”

Hedican, a founder of the internationally renowned Coach4Food program, has always been one to help out others.

“You get more out of doing these things for people then I think the recipient gets,” said Hedican.

“I see him staring at it over in the corner so you could see the happiness in his eyes and it’s a small gesture on my part but it means a lot to him and it’s nice to be able to do things to help other people and like I said it wasn’t a big ask, it didn’t take a lot of work for me to do it but I know it means a lot to Mike, he’s obviously a big fan of the Canadiens so it was an easy thing for me to do.”