We were sitting down to read a newspaper we found on the ground when we came upon this story, about Edmonton Oiler Gilbert Brule donating $10,000 towards the facial reconstruction surgery of little Maddox Flynn, who has a rare condition called cystic hygroma, a rare malformation of the lymphatic system that causes fluid-filled lesions to develop during infancy.

Flynn and his parents are flying to NYC to have a complex (and thereby expensive) surgery designed to reduce the tumour and need help raising the $50,000 needed to travel to New York and undergo the procedure.

Good on you for making a donation to a great cause like this and even better that it represents 1/5 of the money that the family is looking to raise. This is a significant donation and easily one of the brightest news events coming out of the Oilers dressing room since the Oilers announced that no players were injured in the annual "cleaning out of the lockers" at the end of the 2009-10 season.

As a frame of reference, the $10,000 donation from Brule is 1/10 of the paltry $100,000 that the NHL donated to victims of the Earthquake in Haiti which led to this article mocking the NHL from here to next Thursday. The NHL you will recall looked quite the Scrooge back in January after making a donation a tenth the size of the other three major sports leagues and gave Gary Bettman haters the 1,245,915th reason to scream and yell for his dismissal.

Instead of paying $100,000 to give itself a PR black eye, Brule has done some real good with his contribution. What makes it even more impressive is though there was a small article publicizing the donation in the Journal, this seems to be all about Brule wanting to help a kid that has been dealt a rough start to his young life and little to do with seeking publicity.

We are racking our brains trying to remember the last time we read about an Oiler up and donating dough to a cause with which they are not officially associated. It probably happens more often than we hear about, but perhaps the wizards in the PR department could see to it that some positivity hits the newswires from time to time.

Y’know.

Cause the team is so horrendous on the ice that any positives off the ice should lead to an immediate press conference being called and special 10 page pull out sections to be run in the daily newspapers.

In any event, Gilbert Brule just went up in our books. And we once co-authored a 4 part series on the guy which nearly killed Willis and yours truly back in 2008, so you know he was already enjoyed at the Wanye Manor and Acne Treatment Centre.

Anyone looking to donate can email the family for more information at maddoxflynntrustfund@hotmail.com