San Jose Sharks captain Joe Thortnon was forced to cancel his trip to Calgary for Team Canada’s Olympic orientation camp due to his two-month-old son’s illness, according to ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun.
Thornton’s son, River, was hospitalized over the weekend and has since been discharged.
“Obviously, we’re all hoping that his son is OK and it sounds like he’s getting better which is good,” Sharks teammate and fellow camp invitee Logan Couture told ESPN. “We miss not having Joe here.
“I’ll be headed to San Jose once this camp ends and we’ll get to catch up with him.”
Thornton, 34, has represented Canada at each of the last two Olympics and was part of the gold medal-winning side at the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
He, along with Roberto Luongo and Rick Nash, were the only three players invited to this year’s camp that had played for Team Canada in 2006 and ’10.
The only other camp invitee that didn’t appear was Philly’s Claude Giroux, who opted to skip the event in order to rehab his injured hand.