How old is too old?

Photo: Contributed

A cardiologist says there's no right age for someone to hang up their skates in the wake of Alan Thicke's death from a heart attack after playing hockey with his son.

The Canadian actor died Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 69.

Dr. Todd Anderson, director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta and spokesman for the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, said he tells healthy patients to enjoy activities such as hockey.

"I caution them about doing it to extremes, you know go out and enjoy yourself, get some activity, but don't play like you're 25," Anderson said. "For other individuals that have significant heart disease, then I tend to discourage that kind of activity."

Anderson says the current recommendations are for 150 minutes of aerobic activity a week and he'd like to see people get it.

But he says it's a case-by-case scenario.

"The fact that he was playing hockey wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It just happened to be the case where this is where it happened."

Media reports from the U.S. say Thicke was vomiting and not feeling well, but was able to talk when paramedics arrived.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation's website says nausea is one of the signs of a heart attack, along with shortness of breath, light-headedness, chest discomfort, sweating and neck, jaw, shoulder, arm and back pain.

Anderson says many people have warning signs before having a heart attack.

"But unfortunately, for at least a quarter of people who have a heart attack, is that their first event is a sudden death."

The federal Conservatives promised to put defibrillators in arenas across the country during the April 2011 election campaign. In February 2013, then-prime minister Stephen Harper stood on the ice at a Saskatoon rink and said the goal was to have 1,500 in rinks that don't already have them.