Surprise Visit by NHL Players Lifts Patients Spirits

Hockey fan Mike Fariello, a patient on 19 South, received the surprise of a lifetime when National Hockey League players Matt Anderson and Matt Gilroy stopped by for a visit made possible by Patrick Dineen and the Dr. Patrick Dineen Memorial Foundation.  Dineen has been partnering with Stony Brook University Cancer Center for the past six months and called on his friends Anderson, former Right Wing with the New Jersey Devils, now playing professional hockey in the Russian League, and Gilroy, former Defenseman with the New York Rangers, currently playing with the Florida Panthers, to see Fariello. The foundation honors the memory of his father Dr. Patrick J. Dineen, and its mission is to help ease the time during treatment for patients and their families.

One of Fariello’s nurses, Maggie Knight, RN, initiated the request for the visit, and secretly planned with his wife, and the unit’s Nurse Manager, Patricia Doty, to have his family present. The hockey players spent time with Fariello and his family, and presented him with hockey-themed gifts.
This story was originally published on Stony Brook Medicine’s Lifeline Newsletter: