Thursday, August 19, 2010

NHL Hockey Vegan, Georges Laraque, Retires

Recently, Vegan NHL hockey player Georges Laraque of the Montreal Canadiens decided to hang up the skates and retire. There is more to life than hockey, he says, and has an extremely ambitious agenda in front of him.

Here's a portion of his farewell to hockey post on his blog.

Hi everyone,


Well, this day had to come eventually. It was impossible for me to predict how it would happen or even how I would feel. You always hope that it is a decision that is made on your own terms. After a long 12-year hockey career, 695 NHL games, I'm officially announcing my retirement. To a lot of you, it comes as a surprise considering that I'm only 33 years old, but here are all the reasons why I made this decision.

As you know, during my first year with the Canadiens, I developed two herniated disks on my back. It was truly the first time in my career I had to deal with an injury this serious, but, frankly, after 10 years of fighting and hitting, it's not surprising. When I got the diagnosis, I remember one doctor suggesting surgery to fuse my vertebrae in order to fix my problem. At age 31, I didn't think it was such a good idea to have doctors play with nerves on my back. So I took cortisone shots and pills and played through it. Nevertheless, I was never the same. Last year, when I was released by the team in January, I got a chance to heal up and was determined to come back in the NHL or even to play in Europe, but two major events made me do otherwise. First, I met my buddy Nick Brusatore, the inventor and co-founder of TERRASPHERE. He pretty much convinced me to join his company. For me, it wasn't a hard decision to make because that technology will save the world and being able to work on a project that would make such a difference in the world we live in was something I had always dreamed of. If you want more info about this new technology, go to my website. You will find a whole section on it. The second reason is that, while I was training for my comeback, my back started hurting again and to me, that's a real red flag. Do I want to risk playing another year or two and end up being paralyzed? I do like hockey, but not to that extent. Health is much more important and the prospect of ending up in a wheelchair did not appeal to me. At the same time, the TERRASPHERE opportunity presented itself and since I’ve always believed everything happens for a reason, the timing was perfect. It was time for me to move on and be part of something that would change the world.

Read the rest of the post here.

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