H
is name followed him everywhere. Snow. Snowbeat. Snowy Strong. Not because it was unique, but because he was the type of person that people couldn’t forget.
His intelligence, confidence and passion for storytelling stood out from the first time he stepped into 744 Ostrom Ave. — The Daily Orange’s house. He was so good that as a sophomore, editors had to create a beat just for him — the “Snowbeat” — where he wrote about SU’s opposing players and coaches.
That name — and Chris Snow’s name — stuck instantly and didn’t go away. As editors budgeted upcoming stories, they’d write “FB” for football, “MBB” for men’s basketball and so on. For Snow’s stories, it was just his name.
Two decades later, the Snowbeat still exists at The D.O., a way for younger, nascent writers to begin making their mark. Snow’s personal stamp on the newspaper — the Snowbeat is the paper’s only beat named after someone — foreshadowed the impact he left everywhere he went in life.
His public battle with ALS inspired others battling the progressive, incurable nervous system disease, and the “Snowy Strong for ALS” campaign for ALS research raised over $500,000. Over the past four years, Snow approached the fatal disease the same way he approached everything else: with confidence and strength, just like he had as a Syracuse student writing for The D.O., as a sportswriter and as an NHL executive.
“You never met Chris Snow and came away forgetting about him,” said Jeff Passan, a longtime friend and SU classmate.
Snow died Sept. 30 after going into cardiac arrest. He was 42.
“Chris should be remembered not by who he was in the past tense, but in the very living ways he’s with us right now,” longtime friend Dave Levinthal said. “And if we have to go into the past tense, I’ll remember him as the best of us. He’s just somebody who I wish everyone had a chance to meet because they would have been better for it.”
Chris Snow (left) and Eli Saslow (right) pose together during their time at Syracuse. The two worked as assistant sports editors together at The Daily Orange for one semester. Courtesy of Christian Tomas
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hen he was diagnosed in 2019, doctors gave Snow a year to live. An experimental gene therapy called Tofersen began that summer, limiting the progression of the disease. Only about 10% of ALS cases are genetic, and Snow saw his father, cousin and two uncles succumb to the disease.
But unlike them, Snow, as a member of the Calgary Flames front office, possessed a platform to raise awareness. He and his wife, Kelsie, went public with the diagnosis in January 2020, posting updates on social media and Kelsie’s blog, “Sorry, I’m Sad.” For his 40th birthday in August 2021, he threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park, the same ballpark where he covered hundreds of games as a young writer with The Boston Globe.
“This is not the typical story that most people with ALS have,” Snow told The D.O. in 2021. “The path I took is the one I did because I have a platform that (my relatives) didn’t have.”
Snow displayed his typical strength battling ALS — he “went after that motherf*cker,” longtime friend Greg Bishop said. Snow was doing so well he made people forget how serious the disease is, said longtime friend Michael Rothstein. He kept going into work every day as the Flames’ assistant general manager, and in July, Kelsie recorded Snow mowing the lawn despite “almost no use of his hands and arms.”
“It took amazing courage to go that route and be out there and say, ‘Look, this is who I am right now. These are my circumstances, but the stuff that’s core to me that’s important, that’s not going to change,’” said Snow’s close friend Dave Curtis. “And he crushed it. He really did.”
That, of course, was nothing new to Snow. His writing and persona oozed maturity and talent. Curtis said Snow’s writing — as a freshman in college — could’ve appeared in The Syracuse Post-Standard.
There’s an irony that Snow was on the first Snowbeat, Rothstein said. Since Snow started it, the beat has been intended for writers that editors feel have the potential to be great, and he was always the one believing in others’ potential. While many editors at the time were quick to judge a new writer, Snow would often say the writer just “wasn’t good yet,” classmate and friend Eli Saslow recalled.
“He was just so friggin’ optimistic,” Saslow said. “Of course, sometimes, he ended up being disappointed. But he was unfailingly optimistic about people’s potential, which is just a great way to live your life.”
Dave Levinthal takes a selfie with the Snow family at dinner. Levinthal and Snow met at The Daily Orange and quickly became lifelong friends. Courtesy of Dave Levinthal
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hen Curtis’ sports writing career admittedly got off to a “slower start” than some of his classmates, Snow encouraged him to stay with it. “You can’t give up yet,” he said to Curtis. “Hang in there. It’ll work for you. What can I do for you?”
Snow put in a good word at The Globe to help classmate Chico Harlan land an internship there, which Harlan — now a veteran Washington Post reporter — called a “career-maker.” Later, as a member of the Minnesota Wild’s front office, Snow helped another former classmate, Christian Tomas, secure an interview and job offer as team beat writer.
Last month, Bishop wrote a column in Sports Illustrated about his relationship with Snow. The response was overwhelming. Bishop heard from 50-60 people, some of whom Snow took under his wing and befriended as they worked their way into hockey analytics.
“He found a way to believe in people,” Rothstein said. “I mean, he believed in me when I think there were a lot of people that didn’t.”
On the basketball court, Snow believed he was the one who could save his pickup team of fellow ninth-floor Brewster Hall residents even though he “couldn’t shoot for sh*t,” as Bishop said.
Snow also thought he was the best ticket scalper ever, Rothstein said, and whether it was the 2002 Big East Tournament or Michael Jordan’s last game against the Chicago Bulls, he believed he could find him and his friends a way in. Because to Snow, “doing it was always better than not doing it,” Curtis explained. Even if he came up short, like he did for the Wizards-Bulls game, Snow kept fighting. He stayed outside the arena, trying to scalp into the second quarter, unwilling to accept his “ultimate defeat,” as his longtime friend and former SU roommate Dan Bosch recalled.
In 2006, at 25 years old, Snow left his position — a dream job — covering the Red Sox for The Globe, to work as director of hockey operations for the Minnesota Wild. Snow had covered the team for the The Minneapolis Star Tribune after graduating from SU, and he chose the Wild job over an offer from Sports Illustrated, Curtis recalled. Snow asked Curtis over a round of golf and dinner at Bertucci’s in Braintree, Massachusetts if making a “complete leap of faith” to Minnesota was the right decision. Most writers had to work through stops in three or four smaller markets to earn a job like Snow’s in Boston, Rothstein said. That’s just how good Snow was.
The career change landed him in Esquire and ultimately paid off. After four years in Minnesota, Snow became the Flames’ director of analytics. His acumen for statistics and storytelling worked hand in hand as he introduced the data analytics he observed Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherrington implement to end the Red Sox’ World Series drought.
“The guy showed he could be successful in legitimately anything he wanted to be,” Rothstein said. “People like that just don’t exist.”
(Left to right) Greg Bishop, Chris Snow, Jeff Passan and Kelsie Snow pictured at the 2023 Home Run Derby. Snow died less than four months later.Courtesy of Greg Bishop
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n 2005, Snow met Kelsie when both were writing for The Globe. Kelsie was a summer intern rooming with Adam Kilgore, a former classmate and D.O. colleague of Snow’s, and went to the White Horse Tavern with Kilgore, Snow and Pete Thamel on one of her first nights in Boston. Snow asked Kilgore if there were any attractive interns, to which Kilgore replied, “You mean besides Kelsie, the girl sitting right next to us?” A frazzled Snow stuttered before telling Kelsie she had cute hair, Kilgore recalled.
Kelsie wrote it took just 10 minutes for her to fall in love with Snow’s smile, eyes and laugh. Kilgore said the two were made for each other — he later told Kelsie he had never seen two people fall so deeply in love with each other so purely and quickly.
One day that summer, Globe editors jokingly replaced Kelsie’s maiden name with “Snow” on her byline. It became reality two years later on a frigid December day in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Kelsie became an immovable part of Snow’s life. They had two children, Cohen and Willa, and the whole family served as an “inspiration” to others, Bosch said. The most emotional part of Snow’s memorial service in Calgary was when Cohen, 12, leaned into the microphone and called Snow his “best friend,” Passan said.
“Over the last three or four years, Chris and Kelsie and their whole family taught me so much even though none of that was through interpersonal conversation,” Saslow said. “It was just through watching as a family how you go through something really f*cking hard.”
Snow had friends who would do anything for him, too. Tomas offered to take a year off from his World Bank job to help Snow after hearing about his diagnosis. Curtis wasn’t going to propose to his girlfriend until she met Snow multiple times.
Rothstein, an Atlanta Falcons reporter for ESPN, called his bosses after hearing about Snow’s cardiac arrest: “I’m not missing this,” he told them. “I don’t care if I miss a game, I don’t care what you guys say, whatever it is — this is important to me. I need to be there for my friends, and my friend, and his family. Because Chris Snow mattered to me. Greatly.”
Twelve days after his death, Chris Snow’s memorial service took place at St. Michael Catholic Community in Calgary, Alberta. Courtesy of Greg Bishop
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s Snow’s health declined last month, Passan, Bishop and Rothstein sent pictures of him in a group chat. Rothstein has combed through old emails to preserve memories of Snow, and photos of Snow and a brochure from the funeral sit on his nightstand. Next to them are “Snowy Strong” pins, which Rothstein wears while covering games in addition to the “Snowy Strong” stickers already on his two laptops. They’re there for the constant memory of someone who influenced his life greatly, he said.
Snow’s friends tried to plan trips to Calgary, but the pandemic got in the way. One idea was to go to Banff, a resort town outside of Calgary, for a few days around Snow’s 40th birthday. It never came to fruition.
After the formal memorial service at St. Michael Catholic Community on Oct. 12 and reception at the Flames’ home, Scotiabank Saddledome, Kelsie invited about 25-30 people to the Snow’s house. They went there to sit and tell stories about Chris — the storyteller — for hours, with Kelsie leading the way. Some were funny, some were deep and personal and some would’ve been forgotten if they involved anyone else.
“That was the sad part, right? That we had this moment together and we were late,” Curtis said. “Because he couldn’t be part of it.”
Even though ALS stripped Snow of his distinct, booming laugh and radiant, toothy smile, he remained the husband, father and storyteller he always was. And ALS didn’t stop him from leaving impressions on nearly everyone he met.
Passan said Snow didn’t die — he just lived until it was time to stop living. He did the things he wanted to do, and did them with dignity and meaning. “What it showed to other people was not just how strong someone can be, but how strong he actually was,” Passan said.
Snow should be remembered for his deep, meaningful inner passion about what he did, Bishop said.
“I can say a million things,” Bishop said, “but I think you can do it in one word:
“Strong.”
If you’re interested in showing your support, please use the following links:
Snowy Strong stickers for ALS research: https://www.tovashan.com/snowystrong/p/snowy-strong-acrylic-pins
Snow family GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/234ds-help-the-snow-family
Published on November 2, 2023 at 1:34 am
Contact Connor: csmith49@syr.edu | @csmith17_
