The twitching began on a beach in the Bahamas six years ago. It was impossible for Mark Kirton, the longtime professional hockey player, not to notice the unusual movement in his right bicep.

“It wasn’t like I’d lifted any weights or had a lot of coffee,” Kirton said. “That’s the way this started.”

After the right arm, his right hand started to get weak. He started having problems holding onto a golf club. He started losing his balance without notice.

“It went from right arm to left arm,” said the former Leaf, Red Wings, and Canucks player now 63 years old. “From left leg to right leg.”

Kirton saw doctors and more doctors and specialists. He had tests and more tests. For almost three years, he could feel part of him slipping away, physically not mentally, until a stark conversation at Sunnybrook Hospital in 2008.

“That was the 10-second nightmare,” said Kirton. “The doctor said to us, you’ve got ALS. In 10 seconds, our world crashed big time.”

ALS, known medically as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known publicly as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain in the spinal cord. There is no cure.

On Wednesday, 80 years to the day of the death of the legendary Gehrig, The Iron Horse of the New York Yankees, Major League Baseball will honour him for the very first time across the entire sport, having a day of remembrance, awareness, and celebration of his life and of the disease named for him that caused his death and so many others since. The frightening disease that takes its victims away, day by day, piece by piece.

Mark Kirton can’t walk anymore. It’s gotten too difficult and complicated. He doesn’t like to talk about the falls he’s had, the struggles for him and his family, instead he has a rather remarkably optimistic view of this life-changing disease.

“It was tough being told,” Kirton said. “I didn’t know a lot about it but my wife did. We both had done a lot of reading about things before I got diagnosed. At one time they thought I had Lyme Disease. But when you hear the words ALS, it’s different. It’s almost surreal. I remember thinking ‘How am I going tell the kids?’ I had to make some decisions on how I was going to handle this.”

Anyone who knows or knew Kirton from his playing days knows of his big warm personality and giant-sized heart. He likes to talk. He likes to chirp. He likes to laugh. He was a central figure on every team he played on in 11 years of pro hockey, bouncing often from AHL to NHL back to AHL. He played for Punch Imlach, Roger Neilson, Jacques Demers among his coaches. He played with Darryl Sittler, Tiger Williams, Lanny McDonald, Borje Salming, Mike Foligno, Stan Smyl, Cam Neely, Bruce Boudreau, Darryl Sutter, Ron Wilson, Joel Quenneville, to name just a few of his teammates.