That headline probably doesn’t do justice for CapGeek founder Matthew Wuest, who unfortunately passed away due to colon cancer on Thursday night as first reported by Metro Halifax in Canada.

Prior to starting CapGeek, Wuest wrote for numerous publications, including Metro Halifax and The Hockey News. Other projects from Wuest included The Winged Wheel and an NHL cities ranked project during the early days of the Internet.

One of Matt Wuest’s first big ventures back in 2000. pic.twitter.com/ZCoMmZVQYO

— Ted Starkey (@TedStarkey) March 20, 2015

He was excellent back then, just at the age of 21. Worked on several projected, including the NHL cities ranked project. — Ted Starkey (@TedStarkey) March 20, 2015

Undoubtedly, Wuest’s biggest impact was made when he launched CapGeek back in 2009. At that point, there wasn’t a website dedicated to providing news on the NHL’s salary caps, player contracts, cap charts for each team for that season and future years, and so much more. Immediately, it became a viable source for hockey writers like myself, as well as puck fans and even league GMs like Peter Chiarelli. As CapGeek grew, the site included a salary cap calculator, fan forums and more.

Sadly, Wuest shut down the site on January 3rd, 2015, due to health issues. From that point, the hockey community was, and still is, clamoring for another entity or site to provide a similar structure to Wuest’s project that started off from a source of information into something much more.

Unfortunately, during his press conference in Boston back on February 24th, Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t see a future of a similar project for the league to take on its site at NHL.com. As a matter of fact, he even downplayed the significance of CapGeek.

“We hear from the fans on a regular basis and we hear on lots and lots of issues. We’re not getting a lot of feedback on that,” Bettman said “It’s not something that seems to be driving fan interest as much as perhaps the interest of the people in this room and your colleagues.”

Maybe Bettman will have a change of heart after the news of Wuest’s death. Wuest, himself, was trending worldwide on Twitter Thursday night. Media members and fans alike not only paid their respects to the projects he worked on, but also noted his humility, his touching personalty, and the impact he made in this sport.

Matt was a very kind and generous young man, always willing to share info with anyone. Deepest condolences to his family and friends. — Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) March 20, 2015

RIP @capgeek. Matt was always such a wonderful, humble person to deal with. Such a tragedy http://t.co/OwA6aBgbTh

— James Mirtle (@mirtle) March 20, 2015

RIP Mathew Wuest, founder of Cap Geek. Literally changed the game, created something revolutionary. Few can say that. http://t.co/1enqPglHaI

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) March 20, 2015

Awful news re: Matthew Wuest (@capgeek). Big reminder that as much as we love hockey & as much as it can bring us together, it’s just a game

— Ian McLaren (@iancmclaren) March 20, 2015

Those tweets were just a few from the media. Type in Matthew Wuest on Twitter and you’ll see the outpouring support continues less than 24 hours after the news was released of his death.

I never got a chance to meet or interact with Wuest, personally. Even then, it’s easy to see why he was a pioneer in the world of hockey.

Wuest’s era as a pioneer will live on. His life, however, was bigger than CapGeek and the NHL needs to do something to honor his memory.