A Minnesota family lost their teenage son on Friday after the 14-year-old mysteriously passed out on the ice while playing in a hockey game and later died.
Patrick Schoonover’s spontaneous and unprompted fall came shortly after the puck was dropped on Friday around 4 p.m. at the Essentia Health Sports Center in Brainerd, a small town about 125 miles north of Minneapolis.
Police and emergency medical officials got a call about an unconscious person on the ice at around 4:30 p.m. and he was declared dead after the officials brought him to a local medical center.
The cause of his death was not immediately known on Saturday.
The passing of Schoonover prompted the ice hockey community to come together over the weekend. The NHL’s Minnesota Wild tweeted Friday night that the team “joins the State of Hockey in mourning the tragic passing of a Bantam hockey player today in Brainerd,” read the tweet. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the teammates.”
“He passed away unexpectedly playing the game he loved so much,” the family wrote in a statement cited in the Star Tribune. “We appreciate the outpouring of support from the Eastview and Minnesota hockey communities to our family. We want to thank his coach, first responders and the staff at St. Joseph’s for doing everything they could to help Patrick and for providing comfort to our family. We appreciate all of you. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Patrick’s coaches and teammates. He loved all of you. We ask for our privacy from the media at this time.”
He is survived by his parents, Michael and Gayle and three siblings: Abby, 18; Anna, 17; and Matthew, 11. His father is on the local hockey association board.
A hockey tournament that night and a high school girls’ game at the arena were rescheduled as a result of Schoonover’s death.
In a another sign of the hockey community coming together over the weekend, Jack Jablonski, a Minnesota high school player who made national headlines in 2011 after he was paralyzed from an accidental check, also reached out to the family.
“Thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the Eastview player,” he tweeted. “So sorry to hear about such a tragic situation.”
Jablonski has made a partial recovery since the accident three years ago and currently works to inspire awareness for spinal cord injury research.
