Rugby teammates remember Cannon
“There’s all these magical moments,” Nik Witkowski says, thinking of his old friend and teammate John Cannon. “He left an impression on everybody, that big smile.”
Cannon died suddenly on Saturday morning of an apparent heart attack. He was 35.
In the days since, former teammates have shared thoughts and feelings over social media. Some have met for quiet beers to remember their friend, a man full of life, gone too young.
Cannon had “enormous physical abilities and an equally large spirit and joie de vivre,” recalled another former teammate, Mike James.
The rugby careers of Cannon and Witkowski were intertwined almost from Day 1. They both broke onto the national squad in the early 2000s. The burly Cannon was as powerful an inside centre as you could imagine — “unbelievably hard to tackle,” said Witkowski, who was the flashy complement to Cannon playing at outside centre.
“We played a lot together, we lived together,” Witkowski said Monday. “It was a big chapter of my life.”
Cannon, raised in Abbotsford, was barely out of high school when he made his national team debut in 2001. He was “full of life,” Witkowski said.
Last weekend’s Canada Sevens at B.C. Place saw many reunions of old teammates; Witkowski and Cannon were among them.
They caught up at a breakfast organized by longtime Canadian rugby booster Karl Fix.
“He had that same goofy smile,” Witkowski said. “He looked great, same old Johnny Cannon.”
When he heard the news this weekend, Witkowski, understandably, was gobsmacked.
“Shocking — it’s kind of an understatement,” he said. “When someone leaves before they should, you think, ‘Wait a second.’ You get this message from someone, you say, ‘Come on, you’re kidding.’ You have to ask — it just doesn’t fit.’”
For now, Witkowski is focused on his memories of off-field friendship and on-field exploits.
“A freakish player; he could make magic out of things,” he said.
What would have looked like an “ordinary” situation never was so.
“You just wanted to be there for the off-load.”