Young cancer survivor expresses her tearful gratitude to Paul Kariya for inspiring her in her battle

BarDown Staff

Gino Reda/Instagram

Since October 10th, NHL teams have been hosting their own Hockey Fights Cancer Awareness Night.

Teams, players and fans come together to raise money and awareness in the most important fight of all, and the support across the hockey world has been incredible to say the least.

#NJDevils forward Brian Boyle was pretty emotional in an intermission interview following his first goal back in the #NHL after being diagnosed with cancer. . (Via @msgnetworks)

A post shared by TSN (@tsn_official) on Nov 10, 2017 at 12:45am PST

Sometimes it's more than just a game. #HockeyFightsCancer #BoyleStrong pic.twitter.com/b1B9kuU4we
— NHL (@NHL) November 4, 2017

Today was a reminder that no matter what happens on the ice, we’re all fighting for the same things off the ice. #HockeyFightsCancer pic.twitter.com/YtiSoYw632
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) November 4, 2017

Ahead of Monday's Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony, there was a fan forum where fans could ask the inductees questions.

One question and story in particular tugged at our heartstrings as a fan named Michelle and her brother Dave told Paul Kariya about the letter he wrote Michelle when she was battling cancer:

A young cancer survivor expresses her tearful gratitude to Paul Kariya for "inspiring" her to battle through the most difficult moments of her life. Her Story: Doctors told her the aggressive treatment for breast cancer meant she would never have children. On that same day that she refers to as, "the second worst day" of her life, she also received a personalized letter from Paul Kariya encouraging her to keep battling and not give up. She is now healthy, and a proud mom of an 18 month old little girl. This was the moment she shared the story with Paul.

A post shared by Gino Reda (@ginoredatsn) on Nov 11, 2017 at 1:35pm PST

TSN's Gino Reda provided more details about Michelle's story in his Instagram post (which you can see above and you can follow him here).

Kariya gave Michelle a hug after answering the question and as he explained, it's stories like that that mean everything to the players and those stories really put things into perspective.

We imagine it will be very special for Michelle to see the person that inspired her to battle and beat cancer go into the Hall of Fame on Monday.