‘HEAVY HEARTS’

Ex-NHL Player Dies ‘While Playing the Game He Loved’: Family

Raymond Sawada, a 38-year-old former Dallas Stars forward, died suddenly in the middle of a recreational hockey game.

Former Dallas Stars forward Raymond Sawada died suddenly while playing hockey on Monday evening, according to his family. He was 38. In a GoFundMe created for Sawada’s widow and two young daughters, relatives announced with “heavy hearts” that Sawada had died “while playing the game he loved.” An athlete from Richmond, British Columbia, Sawada was a local hockey legend who played in just 11 games for the Stars from 2008 to 2011, scoring one goal during that time. He played in 287 games in the American Hockey League before his retirement in 2016 at the age of 30. He moved home to Richmond with his family, and worked as a firefighter for the neighboring city of Burnaby, according to the fundraiser. “Ray was such a bright light in the lives he touched,” it read. “Ray was passionately driven and motivated in everything he did, and the surrounding community will be left with a void.”