Little hockey player gives Brad Marchand a heartbreaking surprise.

The hockey community is truly the best in all of sports and this is just one more example of why.

On Thursday night, during a game between the Washington Capitals and Florida Panthers, Panthers veteran forward Brad Marchand had a rather interesting reaction with a young fan in the crowd. Marchand could be seen interacting with the fan in question before the very young man reaches over and hands something to the National Hockey League star, placing a blue looking object in Marchand's hands.

There wasn't a ton of information available about what had transpired behind the bench, but we now have the full and heartbreaking story of what this interaction was all about.

According to the Panthers own Jessica Blaylock, the child that can be seen speaking to Marchand is Mason Anderson, son of equipment manager Thomas Anderson, and the gift being handed over during the exchange is a puck. This however is no ordinary puck, with the object carrying a ton of special meaning for all of the parties involved in the exchange.

According to Blaylock, Mason received the puck as player of the game after he recorded a shutout for his youth hockey team but felt that it should go to Marchand instead. Now you might be thinking that Marchand is his favorite player or that he wanted to help give the Panthers a little good luck, but the real reason is much deeper. Mason, who appears to be very young, gave the gift to Marchand because of the terrible ordeal the veteran winger just went through following the passing of a very young girl named Selah MacCallum to cancer.

Selah was the daughter of one of Marchand's very close friends, which resulted in the star forward taking a leave of absence from the team to return to his home province of Nova Scotia to be with his loved ones. Marchand even paid tribute to Selah when he scored in his return game from that leave of absence, showing that the issue remains one that weighs heavily on his heart.

I know that Marchand had a great deal of appreciation for the gift, especially coming from such an unexpected source, and you can see that appreciation with your own eyes in the short video below: