Denna Laing suffered a serious spinal cord injury during the women’s outdoor game on December 31, part of the Winter Classic festivities this season. Since her injury, the Bruins and the NHL have worked to help Laing and her family as she fights through her rehab and recovery.

On Tuesday, the Bruins and Montreal Canadiens wore their Winter Classic jerseys in a game at the Bell Center, with the plan to auction off the jerseys to help Laing’s expenses. Bruins players, including captain Zdeno Chara, have visited Laing in the hospital and on Thursday the team, with Laing’s Boston Pride National Women’s Hockey League team, held a 50/50 raffle that raised more than $20,000 for the Denna Laing Fund.

Before the game, the tribute included a very heartwarming video for Laing, preceded by a wonderful recording form her.

From NHL.com:

“I’m wishing I could be with you at the game tonight, but I wanted to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all the love, support and prayers you have been sending my way,” Laing said from her hospital bed. “I wanted to thank the NHL, the Bruins and the Canadiens organization for their incredible generosity and kindness. I have a lot of hard work in front of me, but I have never been afraid of a challenge.”

As Greg Wyshynski at Yahoo’s Puck Daddy wrote, “One of the greatest things about our hockey community is how it rallies around players who have been seriously injured playing an injurious game.”

The NHL and the Boston organization have stepped up to organized ways to help Laing, and to see the outpouring of support from not only the fans, but other players as well, will hopefully drive her to a swift recovery.

[Puck Daddy]

About Dan Levy

Dan Levy has written a lot of words in a lot of places, most recently as the National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. He was host of The Morning B/Reakaway on Sirius XM's Bleacher Report Radio for the past year, and previously worked at Sporting News and Rutgers University, with a concentration on sports, media and public relations.