Some cool pics from Hockey Fights Cancer Night in Boston last week.

[Forkboy]

Cam Neely has always been involved in helping cancer patients. Both his parents died from cancer, and he and his brother started The Neely Foundation, which provides a place to stay for families dealing with both the treatment and the travel. Here's a short piece from TNF site;

Steven and Erin McDonnell were leaving the country. He had quit his job and they had sold their home near Boston to head north to Nova Scotia. The plan was to go into the seafood business.

Then came the dreadful news: Isabel, their 11-month-old daughter, had leukemia.

The couple feared for their baby's life. "We thought that was the end of the story," Mr. McDonnell recalls.

It wasn't. Within weeks, Isabel's leukemia began to move into remission. But she would require a year of chemotherapy, spending up to six months of it in hospital. Meanwhile, her parents faced uncertain medical bills and had nowhere to stay.

They thought about renting an apartment, but in the overheated Boston market, landlords were demanding first and last months' rent and security deposits; on top of that, you needed to pay a broker just to find a suitable place.

Then came something Mr. McDonnell describes as a godsend: admission to the Neely House, where, for just $10 a night, they had a room in a renovated wing of the Tufts-New England Medical Center while their daughter underwent treatment at the adjacent Floating Hospital for Children.
Today, blond-haired, blue-eyed Isabel is 5, and quite literally a poster child for the residence, which has offered shelter to more than 2,000 cancer patients and their families since it opened in 1997. It was home to the McDonnells for 11 months as Isabel underwent the treatment that drove her illness into total remission. If she remains cancer-free until next September, doctors will consider her "cured."

While Isabel was in hospital, one parent would stay in the room with her and the other would sleep at the Neely House. Later, when she was being treated as an outpatient, the whole family lived in the self-contained, bed-and-breakfast-type unit, one of 16 with access to a common living room and kitchen.

"You don't realize how amazing the place is until you have experienced it," Mr. McDonnell says. "You can't even imagine how appreciative you are to have just the little things there for you, like laundry and not having to commute when you are going through something like that.''

Here's some info about TNF.

http://www.camneelyfoundation.com/about/index.php

Cam has always been my favorite hockey player for they way he played the game, but it's this stuff that makes him so cool.

Anyways, onto the pics....There's not many, but the last one is the best one. :)

http://bruins.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=MediaGalleryPlayer&galleryId=7881