The Loop
Sports produced two all-time father-son moments on Wednesday night
Rich Schultz
As if we needed more proof sports were the best, two different sports produced a pair of all-time, heartwarming moments between father and son on Wednesday night. Prepare your feels, people.
First up we go to the National Hockey League, where one of the marquee games of the night took place in Edmonton. The first-place in the Pacific Division Oilers welcomed in the best team in the NHL, the Boston Bruins, and the Bruins escaped with a 2-1 victory to extend their win streak to four games.
The best moment of the night came during the pre-game, when former Oiler Louie Debrusk, now a color analyst on Hockey Night in Canada, interviewed one of Boston's top wingers, Jake Debrusk, who just so happens to be his son. Here's the clip:
"Thanks dad, I love you." Who is cutting onions? Such a cool moment for these two.
Next up we go to college basketball, where an equally touching moment occurred in Newark, N.J., of all places (I'm from N.J. so I'm allowed to make this joke). The only ranked vs. ranked matchup of the night, No. 16 Seton Hall vs. No. 21 Butler, lived up to the hype. With the game tied 72-72 and just 0.6 seconds left, Pirates point guard Quincy McKnight threw a perfect inbound pass to junior forward Sandro Mamukelashvili, who was able to get a shot up despite such little time on the clock:
Mamukelashvili's buzzer beater ("Mamu" for short) gave the Hall a much needed victory, ending what was only their second two-game losing streak of the year. But there is an even better back story to the shot. Mamu hails from Georgia (the country), and his father had only seen him play in person once. Wednesday night happened to be the second time, as Asbury Park Press college basketball writer Jerry Carino pointed out:
The other interesting wrinkle, as Carino reported here, is that Mamu's father is a cancer survivor. As you can see from all the pink inside the Prudential Center, it was Seton Hall's Cancer Awareness Night. You'd think they scripted this stuff:
Sports >>>> everything else.