A Nanaimo, B.C., couple is in awe at the kindness of an internet stranger who helped them track down a coveted Christmas gift.
It all began with Melissa Bowie’s search for a Canucks Black skate jersey emblazoned with number 43, worn by Captain Quinn Hughes, for her husband Sean.
“I could not find anything online,” she said.
Melissa said she even asked her brother, an Edmonton Oilers fan, who begrudgingly tried to help.
“We’re an Oilers family who married into a Canucks family, but he couldn’t find anything either,” she said.
With her options running out, she turned to a Canucks forum on Reddit, detailing her request and writing, “Is this an impossible ask?”
Someone eventually replied.
“I was like, I wonder if this person is real,” she said. “You start to wonder, is this a scam?”
The man said he lived in downtown Vancouver and could check the Canucks Team Store at Rogers Arena.
Melissa said she told him he didn’t have to do that, but he replied: “No I’d love to, I’m a big fan.”
The stranger found the jersey and bought it, but faced another hurdle – at that point, the Canada Post strike was still underway.
“He went to three other couriers because two of them were closed,” Melissa said.
The stranger eventually managed to ship the jersey to her, and Melissa reimbursed him for all of his expenses.
“He took a chance on me, and I took a chance on him and it ended up working out,” she said.
The gesture was so special, Melissa decided to give jersey number 43 to Sean a few days early, on his 43rd birthday.
Her husband described the lengths this man went to in order to ensure he received the gift as incredible – “especially for this day and age, for lack of a better way of putting it.”
“I’m still amazed, honestly, by all of it,” Sean said.
The act of kindness – from one Canucks fan to another – even restored Sean’s faith in humanity.
“One of my most important core beliefs is that there’s more good and love in the world than hate, and lately I’m having a really hard time believing that,” he said. “So this completely selfless gesture that would have meant a lot to me already… means that much more to me because of where I’m at right now.”
And perhaps this good Samaritan’s good deed will help remind us what this season is all about.
“There’s a lot of good things happening out there,” Melissa said. “Maybe we just need to pay a bit more attention to that sometimes.”
