Death
At approximately 1:33 p.m. on August 31, 2011, Belak was found dead in a condo at the One King Street West hotel in Toronto. Police have not confirmed a cause of death, but Toronto Police treated it as a suicide. He was 35 years old, and had been preparing to take part in the upcoming season of Battle of the Blades. His death was the third in a string of NHL players found dead in a four-month span, following Derek Boogaard and Rick Rypien. His mother stated that he had been suffering from depression. Michael Landsberg reported that he had been in talks with Belak a week before his death about their mutual depression, and that Belak admitted having been on "happy pills" for the past four to five years. Landsberg stated that Belak was agreeable to appearing in a documentary on celebrity depression that Landsberg was working on, and going public about his condition.
On September 2, 2011, P. J. Stock suggested that Belak's death might not be suicide. "Let's just call it an accidental death right now. But he did die of strangulation" said Stock. On September 21, 2011, Stock expressed regret for making those comments, explained that he did not have any information about Belak's death that was not public, and said "I just wanted to protect Wade, protect his family and his role in the game." Belak's family members have stated that they believe his death was accidental.
Belak's funeral was held in Nashville, with friends, family and former teammates in attendance.
Read more about this topic: Wade Belak
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
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“The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.”
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