“I just finished chemo”: Father and son surprised with unforgettable Canucks experience

Mar 13 2023, 7:26 pm

It’s a heartwarming experience Vancouver Canucks fans Jayce and his father David will likely never forget.

While shopping at a Vancouver Walmart, the father and son were stopped by Zachery Dereniowski with a question.

Known on social media by the handle @mdmotivator, Dereniowski has 14.6 million followers on TikTok and another 2.8 million followers on Instagram.

After asking the father for a dollar as a “kindness test,” Dereniowski handed the cash back, along with an additional $1,000, before gifting them a Canucks experience of a lifetime.

“It’s going to help us a lot,” David said, who was brought to tears by the gesture. “I just finished chemo.”

Then Dereniowski told the pair that not only was he sending them to that night’s Canucks game against the Ottawa Senators, but they’ll also be meeting “all the players” too.

“What do you mean we’re going to the Canucks game?” David said in the viral video posted by Dereniowski. “I don’t even know what’s happening.”

Dereniowski’s video has picked up over 300,000 likes and more than 8,000 comments on Instagram in under 24 hours and has over 16 million views on TikTok.

The father and son were given team gear and ushered into a limo to Rogers Arena, where they sat in a pair of lower-bowl seats and saw the Canucks beat the Senators 5-2, in one of Vancouver’s best games of the season. Jayce even got to participate in a trivia segment on the big screen with Canucks in-game host Ronil Desai.

Afterward, David and Jayce got to meet multiple players outside the Canucks’ dressing room, with the video showing them getting autographs from Tyler Myers, Conor Garland, and Elias Pettersson.

“Not many people get an opportunity like this,” Jayce said. “This is like the best day of my life.”

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