Outpouring of support following death of beloved Silvertips fan

MARYSVILLE — She told herself she wouldn’t go back.

Not now, not ever. No one would have blamed her. The emotion was too raw, the pain too sharp.

It was nearly a month before Lynda Winsor chose to talk publicly about that night in late January when John, her husband of 51 years, suffered a fatal heart attack at Xfinity Arena prior to an Everett Silvertips game against the Portland Winterhawks.

But Lynda is resilient, as was her late husband, who was shot down three times as a helicopter gunner in Vietnam, beat prostate cancer, the loss of several fingers in an industrial accident and several other ailments, while coming through unscathed prior to the tragic night.

John Winsor was a hard worker, a blue collar union man who set an example for his daughter, Julie Knutsen, his two grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. He was also a very generous person who donated to causes indiscriminate and whose garage in his North Marysville neighborhood was always open for neighbors to borrow tools.

But it was the work ethic exemplified by the charges of Everett Silvertips head coach Kevin Constantine that resonated most with John. He admired high school and college-aged young men willing to leave their homes in Canada, the United States and multiple European countries to pursue their dreams of NHL stardom.

The Winsors were among those who knew nothing about hockey when the Silvertips arrived in 2003, but became season-ticket holders the next year. John and Lynda grew to love Section 102 and they have more friends there than they knew.

Grief is an intensely personal experience and Lynda doesn’t owe anyone anything. But she’ll be back in Section 102 Saturday night for John, for the makeshift memorial that has occupied their seats since John’s death, and for the hockey family that embraced and overwhelmed her in the worst of times.

‘The benchmark for who you’d want to be’

The night John died began like many others. The Winsors arrived at Xfinity Arena early so they could watch warm-ups.

Nothing seemed unusual.

“It wasn’t until I went to sit down and said ‘Move over, I need to get in,’ and he didn’t move,” Lynda said. “Then he was looking up, and I said, ‘What are you looking at?’ Then I noticed something was really wrong — his coloring and his eyes and everything. But our friend Danny (Warren) was right in front of him talking to another guy and nobody noticed at all that anything was wrong. He went, evidently, very fast and very peacefully.”

Kelly Hanson, who sits behind the Winsors, rushed for the paramedics at the top of the stairs while her fiance, Charles Jackson, joined Warren in trying to help. John was taken to Providence Hospital, but he did not recover.

The responses were immediate. The story made its way to Facebook and spread via the “Snohomish County Crime and Community” and “WHL Talk” pages. The Winterhawks expressed their condolences and soon other WHL teams and fans did the same.

Jackson and fellow Section 102 members Derek Pope and Andrew Burrows have created a makeshift memorial at John and Lynda’s seats at each home game since, placing jerseys over the chairs with a picture of the couple.

“John and Lynda set the benchmark for who you’d want to be,” said Burrows, 29. “Say you’re having a bad day, you’d go in there and they’d make you laugh, they’d make you smile. Their love was infectious.

“They always had a smile, they always made you feel welcome and they made it a family atmosphere around here.”

The following night in a 5-1 loss to Kamloops the Tips honored John’s memory by not sounding the horn when Connor Dewar scored Everett’s lone goal.

A phenomenal response

Tea is Lynda’s beverage of choice on a recent afternoon, red Crystal Light for her guest in the home she and John had called their own since 1986. Arabian horses then roamed behind the house in fields now subdivided into residential lots. The horses are gone, but Quil Ceda Creek runs beside the back yard, retaining a rustic feel.

There is a wicker basket filled with more than 100 condolence cards. That’s a mere fraction of the 350-plus people who showed up for John’s memorial service.

“The outreach from the other fans has been phenomenal,” Lynda said. “You see these people, we’ve all sat together for years. You see them all and you see their little kids grow up and different things and you talk to them. But to be honest I didn’t know all their names and everything. I just went, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It really has been great, but it’s still kind of overwhelming.”

It turns out John was the sort of guy who engendered that sort of response.

“He was a great overall person,” said Pope, 26, who has had season tickets with Burrows for five seasons. “He always came down with a smile, him and Lynda would walk down, pat you on the back and give you a hug on the way down. He was essentially the heartbeat of our organization.”

John and Lynda began dating at 16 and were married at 21. Other than the year-plus he was deployed to Vietnam, John lived his entire life in Snohomish County. He worked at Boeing, Weyerhauser and Scott Paper/Kimberly Clark while Lynda spent 30 years working for the Marysville School District before they both retired in 2005.

At various times John held season tickets to the Seahawks and Huskies, but it was the Silvertips that captured the Winsors’ fancy during the magical inaugural season in 2003-04 that saw Everett win its only Western Conference title.

“I think it’s just seeing (how) they play so hard,” Lynda said. “They work so hard, and you think ‘those are just kids out there playing.’ They’re just high school kids, but they really play their hearts out.”

That was what John could truly appreciate.

Coming back

It took time to process and several soul-searching talks with her daughter to convince Lynda to return to Xfinity Arena.

“I didn’t think I could ever go back in that place again, but (Julie) said, ‘You know Mom, Dad really loved hockey, you really like hockey. You’ve got a lot of hockey family there,’” Lynda said. “(I) need to have new memories and good memories instead of just the bad memories of that night.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be like (Saturday) and if I’ll be a basket case or what, but I’m going to go,” Lynda added. “I want to thank these people for all their love and care.”

Burrows, Pope and Jackson hope to eventually commission a memorial plaque, either near the Winsors’ seats or on the concourse. In the meantime the jerseys will remain as a way of keeping John’s presence felt in Section 102.

“These people really do care,’” Lynda said. “You never know what’s around you … You don’t realize the impact they’ll have on your life.”

Or the impact John had on theirs.

Follow Herald Writer Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.