afraid of standing still [A/N]
Title: afraid of standing still
Author: sherlockelly
Pairing: Dany Heatley/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Real people, fake story.
Word Count: 25,795
Summary: Dany Heatley continues to drift violent away from the idea of the man he had wanted to be.
one . two . three . four . notes
This behemoth has been the bane of my existence since before Thanksgiving when this bunny first hopped merrily into my head.
The initial idea began when I read this article and wanted to play around with writing a story to flesh it out. It was going to be my first time writing an original character as a main character so there was some apprehension here.
Probably the thing that’s changed the most for me is that I started out writing this not really caring all that much for Heatley. I mean, I liked him well enough as a member of my team, but I really didn’t have anything else to say about him.
By the time this was about a two-thirds of the way done, however, I was totally head over heels in love with him. The game where he was back in Ottawa for the first time unintentionally coincided with the brunt of the emotional scenes and hearing him be the focus of such negative attention, instead of before where it would have probably amused me, was actually horrifically upsetting to the point of throwing up the morning before the game.
Two weeks after that game, things only got worse as far as my love for him. I now own, literally, a shirt for every North American team that Heatley every played on, including Wisconsin. The final count as of posting this is five. Before this story, I didn’t have a single piece of Heatley merchandise, so it was a huge transformation.
The title of the story comes from a Chinese proverb. Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. I was looking for inspiration when it came time to give this a name and that stood out to me as one of the most profound ways to look at moving on from a tragedy like this.
A very dear friend of mine had something similar happen to him when he was in high school and the hours and nights that I have spent up talking with him about the emotions and the guilt that he has really helped me when I was trying to convey what it was I felt the story needed to convey.
General Background
To flesh out the truth to a lot of this story I have to give a little background and biographical information.
Heatley’s parents are Murray and Karin Heatley. His mother is from Germany, where his father was playing hockey at the time when they met. Dany was born in Germany, as was his younger brother Mark, though they relocated to Calgary when Dany was three, where his parents still live to this day.
Dan Snyder was the middle of three children born to Graham and Lu Anne Snyder in Elmira, ON. His older brother is Jake and his younger sister is Erika.
Most of the dates coincide with the real events of the crash, though I gleaned a lot of this from newspaper archives from the Atlanta area.
Heatley suffered a broken jaw, a bruised kidney and ribs, three torn knee ligaments, a separated shoulder and a concussion in the accident, Snyder suffered from a depressed skull fracture. Because of the concussion, Heatley has no memory of the events leading up to and including the crash and the cause of Heatley losing control of the Ferrari, if any, still isn’t known. He stated himself during his hearing that he had no recollection of anything outside what he’d been told and shown.
Both men were thrown from the vehicle, their seatbelts snapping with the impact, and were happened upon by a groundskeeper at the apartment complex where the crash occurred. The transcript of the 911 call is heart-wrenching to read and the caller initially insists that both men are dead in the road. The car itself was torn into two pieces.
Snyder spent six days in a coma and he never regained consciousness after the crash. He died of a septic infection, though it is unclear if the infection was result of his injuries or the subsequent influx of unsanctioned visitors and conditions at the hospital.
Heatley was arrested and initially charged with a felony count of injury by vehicle and three other misdemeanor charges the night of the accident. He was handcuffed to his hospital bed until Lu Anne Snyder demanded that his restraints be removed before his parents arrived to see him like that. The Thrashers organization posted his bond.
The charges were upgraded after Snyder passed away on October 5th, 2003.
There are plenty of articles floating around on the details, but a few of the better written and most poignant can be found in the following links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Pictures
Heatley and Snyder celebrate the final game of the 2003 season on April 6th.
(GRAPHIC) Heatley’s mugshot, taken in his hospital bed the night of the accident
Pictures of the wrecked Ferrari: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Heatley at the funeral in Elmira, still on crutches.
Another picture from the funeral, leg brace, crutches and broken jaw evident.
Music
I listened to a lot of music while writing this story, but three songs were the most influential with really capturing the mood that I wanted. One was the Tragically Hip song ‘Heaven is A Better Place Today’, which I can’t find on YouTube, but is available to listen to for free on Grooveshark. The song was written partially about Snyder’s death.
Other songs that played a big part are:
Resources
Without these resources, I would have been completely stranded at sea with his story and most likely would have abandoned it after a few hours.
The original premise for the story comes from this article, though the structure sort of strayed a bit.
Hockeydb was instrumental in giving me player information, team rosters, schedules and final scores. I have had a tab of this site open since I first started writing.
Also thanks to old articles archived from The New York Times and The Washington Post.
And, last but almost certainly not least, this book by John Manasso, which interviewed nearly all the people that I wanted to interview and provided lots of information where it was missing elsewhere.
Author: sherlockelly
Pairing: Dany Heatley/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Real people, fake story.
Word Count: 25,795
Summary: Dany Heatley continues to drift violent away from the idea of the man he had wanted to be.
one . two . three . four . notes
This behemoth has been the bane of my existence since before Thanksgiving when this bunny first hopped merrily into my head.
The initial idea began when I read this article and wanted to play around with writing a story to flesh it out. It was going to be my first time writing an original character as a main character so there was some apprehension here.
Probably the thing that’s changed the most for me is that I started out writing this not really caring all that much for Heatley. I mean, I liked him well enough as a member of my team, but I really didn’t have anything else to say about him.
By the time this was about a two-thirds of the way done, however, I was totally head over heels in love with him. The game where he was back in Ottawa for the first time unintentionally coincided with the brunt of the emotional scenes and hearing him be the focus of such negative attention, instead of before where it would have probably amused me, was actually horrifically upsetting to the point of throwing up the morning before the game.
Two weeks after that game, things only got worse as far as my love for him. I now own, literally, a shirt for every North American team that Heatley every played on, including Wisconsin. The final count as of posting this is five. Before this story, I didn’t have a single piece of Heatley merchandise, so it was a huge transformation.
The title of the story comes from a Chinese proverb. Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. I was looking for inspiration when it came time to give this a name and that stood out to me as one of the most profound ways to look at moving on from a tragedy like this.
A very dear friend of mine had something similar happen to him when he was in high school and the hours and nights that I have spent up talking with him about the emotions and the guilt that he has really helped me when I was trying to convey what it was I felt the story needed to convey.
General Background
To flesh out the truth to a lot of this story I have to give a little background and biographical information.
Heatley’s parents are Murray and Karin Heatley. His mother is from Germany, where his father was playing hockey at the time when they met. Dany was born in Germany, as was his younger brother Mark, though they relocated to Calgary when Dany was three, where his parents still live to this day.
Dan Snyder was the middle of three children born to Graham and Lu Anne Snyder in Elmira, ON. His older brother is Jake and his younger sister is Erika.
Most of the dates coincide with the real events of the crash, though I gleaned a lot of this from newspaper archives from the Atlanta area.
Heatley suffered a broken jaw, a bruised kidney and ribs, three torn knee ligaments, a separated shoulder and a concussion in the accident, Snyder suffered from a depressed skull fracture. Because of the concussion, Heatley has no memory of the events leading up to and including the crash and the cause of Heatley losing control of the Ferrari, if any, still isn’t known. He stated himself during his hearing that he had no recollection of anything outside what he’d been told and shown.
Both men were thrown from the vehicle, their seatbelts snapping with the impact, and were happened upon by a groundskeeper at the apartment complex where the crash occurred. The transcript of the 911 call is heart-wrenching to read and the caller initially insists that both men are dead in the road. The car itself was torn into two pieces.
Snyder spent six days in a coma and he never regained consciousness after the crash. He died of a septic infection, though it is unclear if the infection was result of his injuries or the subsequent influx of unsanctioned visitors and conditions at the hospital.
Heatley was arrested and initially charged with a felony count of injury by vehicle and three other misdemeanor charges the night of the accident. He was handcuffed to his hospital bed until Lu Anne Snyder demanded that his restraints be removed before his parents arrived to see him like that. The Thrashers organization posted his bond.
The charges were upgraded after Snyder passed away on October 5th, 2003.
There are plenty of articles floating around on the details, but a few of the better written and most poignant can be found in the following links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Pictures
Heatley and Snyder celebrate the final game of the 2003 season on April 6th.
(GRAPHIC) Heatley’s mugshot, taken in his hospital bed the night of the accident
Pictures of the wrecked Ferrari: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Heatley at the funeral in Elmira, still on crutches.
Another picture from the funeral, leg brace, crutches and broken jaw evident.
Music
I listened to a lot of music while writing this story, but three songs were the most influential with really capturing the mood that I wanted. One was the Tragically Hip song ‘Heaven is A Better Place Today’, which I can’t find on YouTube, but is available to listen to for free on Grooveshark. The song was written partially about Snyder’s death.
Other songs that played a big part are:
Click to viewResources
Without these resources, I would have been completely stranded at sea with his story and most likely would have abandoned it after a few hours.
The original premise for the story comes from this article, though the structure sort of strayed a bit.
Hockeydb was instrumental in giving me player information, team rosters, schedules and final scores. I have had a tab of this site open since I first started writing.
Also thanks to old articles archived from The New York Times and The Washington Post.
And, last but almost certainly not least, this book by John Manasso, which interviewed nearly all the people that I wanted to interview and provided lots of information where it was missing elsewhere.