Mark Molson 1949-2006

I am very sad to report the sudden passing of Mark Molson on January 19th from a heart attack. Mark was born in 1949 and grew up and lived in Montreal for most of his life, before settling in Hollywood, Florida in 1999. Mark had a long string of bridge trophies to his credit, in North America and internationally.

I met him in the late 70's when I lived in Toronto, became friends with him, and saw him at most of the major Canadian tournaments in the Toronto or Montreal areas. At one of these tournaments, the Toronto Regional of April, 1981, I met a New Yorker named Matthew Granovetter, who invited me and a few people to his room for drinks after the game. Mark was there, too, so he was in on the beginning of what turned out to be my lifelong "partnership" with Matthew.

Once, Matthew and I travelled to Reykjavik, Iceland with Mark and Alan Sontag, where we were teammates (we finished second), and we had a grand time playing bridge and hanging out together (Matthew did well with Mark on other teams as well).

I was away from bridge tournaments for about 12 years, but last summer at the Atlanta Nationals, Mark and his wife Janice Seamon-Molson (and their daughter Jennifer, and Janice's mother Rita) joined us for dinner one Friday night and I had a chance to see what a doting and devoted father Mark was (although he looked just as boyish as he did when I first met him!), and he was obviously crazy about Janice.

When I saw him last fall in Denver, we had another talk, and he told me that he missed Canada but would never move back there because "Janice is a Miami girl."

One of the things I always took for granted when attending a Nationals was that I would see Mark's warm and smiling face and have a chance to spend a little time chatting with him or discussing a bridge problem together. Like so many others, I will miss him greatly.