Champ for Charity Greg McBride grateful to McMaster Children’s Hospital for helping protect his daughter’s sight
By Jeff Hicks
KITCHENER
Greg McBride dropped to one knee in the middle of the boxing ring at SydFit Health Centre.
His pony-tailed opponent circled her staggered and overwhelmed prey.
The floppy ears on her Paw Patrol slippers flapped. Her over-sized maroon gloves spun around with each punch like they were on the wrong hand. They were.
Her smile and giggles, and a relentless barrage of cuteness, were too much for him.
McBride, one of Mandy Bujold’s 18 Champions for Charity in training for The Brawl at Tapestry Hall on April 12th, surrendered to his five-year-old daughter Josie.
She was a pussycat. He was a pushover.
“She loves putting on the boxing gloves,” McBride said of energetic Josie. “That’s one of her favourite things. And punching the pillow.”
Or throwing a few gentle jabs at dad, who spent almost 20 years in the armed forces.
Some infantry-trained tough guy, McBride is. Dubbed Bridezilla by Fight Night opponent Chris.
Oh, he was terrified once. So was wife Tiana. But not when they looked at housing prices in Toronto and decided to move to Kitchener a decade ago.
It was the morning Josie, then two, woke up with a puffy and swollen left eye.
Josie fell out of bed after coming down with a rare infection behind her eye. Without immediate treatment, she could end up blind in one eye.
McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton was the family’s next stop after taking Josie to emergency in Kitchener. Greg and Tiana were punch-drunk with fear.
“Staff at the hospital did a great job with her and a great job with us,” said McBride, who has been extra motivated to help the Champions for Charity raise more than $258,000 for McMaster Children’s Hospital Foundation. “We were super stressing out. They kept us calm, letting us know everything was going to be OK.”
And Josie? She played and laughed and giggled in between courses of antibiotics.
The hospital, a place for kids to heal, had the best toys and brightest colours.
“They kept her entertained,” McBride said of the nurses and staff. “She was laughing and having a great time. They were fantastic.”
McBride, who tells digital tales for a business-serving video storytelling company in Kitchener called Onward Media Group, said Josie’s eye was back to looking normal in three or four days.
She was on antibiotics for 10 days.
Now, a few years later, she’s in senior kindergarten. Josie is also into karate and jiu-jitsu and is an honourary member of McBride’s Blue Team for fight night, taking on the dreaded Red Team in a charity grudge match of boxing. Bragging rights are at stake. Josie has picked her side.
“She keeps reminding me that she’s also on the Blue Team,” McBride said. “She likes to wear blue clothes now. It used to be pink and purple.”
Josie — named Johanna Lynn for her mother-in-law Johanna and McBride’s mom Lynn —was a blue tornado in the ring against her dad.
They both collapsed into each other’s arms at the final bell.
“We hugged it out at the end,” McBride said.
To Support McMaster Children’s Hospital Foundation and donate to Greg, click here.
