Koivu, best story in sports, in Boston tonight

Russ Conway

Saturday, April 20, 2002   Eagle-Tribune Writer

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BOSTON -- Tonight there's an important hockey game between the Bruins and Montreal Canadiens at the FleetCenter: Game 2 of their opening round best-of-seven Stanley Cup series (7 p.m., NESN) with the Canadiens already a game up.

But when you consider the big picture Canadiens captain Saku Koivu looks at, the importance of no game begins to compare with the life-and-death reality check he has faced head-on since early last September.

To even be on the ice in this series, playing a professional sport, should make anybody with a beating heart appreciate this guy.

He isn't simply one of 40 players in tonight's lineup. In these eyes, he's the best story in all of pro sports so far this year -- including Tom Brady and the Patriots, or Tiger Woods' third green jacket at The Masters.

A cancer survivor who's experienced the frightening hell of wondering whether or not he would even live, never mind play hockey again, his incredible journey is the epitome of courageous comeback stories. Worth repeating, you should know, to any friend, family member or acquaintance whose life may be touched by this nightmarish disease.

In fact, there's a personal side to it to share.

While in Montreal just over six months ago, when we last had a chance before yesterday to talk one-on-one for a while with Koivu, he already had been diagnosed with abdominal stomach cancer. On a flight from Finland to Montreal where he was to begin training camp with the Canadians, he was unusually sick, constantly vomiting, enough to visit a doctors shortly after arriving in Canada to see what was wrong.

A day later he got the bad news.

Forget playing hockey: A diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, requiring an automatic barrage of intensive chemotherapy, a tube inserted into his heart to feed him drug treatments, he'd lose his hair and have a weak immune system.

What Dr. David Mulder, the Montreal Canadiens' team physician and chief surgeon, didn't tell him then was that with everything medical science could do (and they had the best place for such treatments in Canada, right in Montreal), there was about a 50-50 chance of survival.

Yet to see Koivu's attitude back in early October and hear him speak, so positive and so determined, it was hard to believe he was so seriously ill.

"I'm going to be the Lance Armstrong of hockey," he promised with a quiet confident nod, talking about the three-time Tour De France winner who beat cancer.

Armstrong had already spoken with Koivu, as had Mario Lemieux, who came back to play after treatments for cancer, a nodular lymphocytic form of Hodgkin's in 1993.

Of course, some people with cancer often deliberately say things, just to ease the tension of casual conversation with others. But you could sense, even back then, that Koivu meant it.

"That's the way I feel. You can't look back. Take it one day at a time, move forward, and look ahead with a goal to play again," he insisted.

We remember walking away, thinking about the way Koivu was handling his bad break. Couldn't stop thinking about him, either, even a couple days later on a four-hour drive back from Montreal. Instead of the slightest hint of a "poor-me" outlook, which would have been understandable, at least on the outside, he was nothing but positive.

"You see him, you listen to him, and you wonder to yourself, 'How would I handle that if I were him?' " Canadiens' general manager Andre Savard asked a few days later during a phone conversation. "God bless him. He's got guts."

"What do you think? He says he's going to be the Lance Armstrong of hockey," Savard was told.

"Never mind hockey. I just want to see him get better," Savard replied. "This isn't a hockey career we're worried about. We're talking about life and death."

Promise made good

Yesterday, after the Canadiens had practiced at Merrimack College, Koivu was reminded of his early October promise and the hallway conversation with a longtime hockey observer from just outside of Boston.

He didn't mind the latest circumstances, either, while he pumped away on the pedals of an exercise bicycle in the visiting dressing room.

"Did you ever really think back then," he was asked, "that you'd be here, riding that bike, getting ready for the second playoff game in April?"

Beads of sweat pouring from his forehead, he smiled, paused, and stopped peddling.

"Well, I wasn't thinking about it happening quite like this," he said, pointing to the bike, breaking into a grin.

He's a good-natured fellow, Koivu is, and more than willing to talk about his comeback in front of a gathering of media types for the umpteenth time, or just one on one.

."I wasn't thinking about playing now five months ago, or six months ago. All I wanted then was to live a normal life," he says. "When things are going along fine and all of a sudden your life is turned upside-down, it gives you a whole new prospective on your priorities.

"I'm extremely fortunate just to be here," he confesses. "I don't think the doctors or even myself thought this was possible, at least not this season. It's a great feeling just to wake up in the morning."

But to wake up and play hockey at a professional level, score a Stanley Cup playoff goal, assist on another, play 17 shifts and nearly 14 minutes in your fourth game back after missing a season because of cancer? Playing on the left wing when he's a natural center, but on a line with Yanic Perreault and Donald Audette that suddenly erupts for three goals.

And to boot, at 5-10, 180 pounds, get body-checked through the gate on the boards in front of the Bruins' bench by 6-7, 240-pound Hal Gill?

"That was fun," he laughs. "He hit me, the door's open, and the next thing I knew I was sitting there with the Bruins."

He passed that rough-and-tumble test, too.

It's only been three months since Koivu's last chemo treatment, six days in a hospital at a time.

"Ya," he admitted with a slight chuckle, "I'm surprised to be here. But I had a lot of support, believe me."

Bad days, good days, times when he felt down, but his teammates, Canadiens owner George Gillett, general manager Andre Savard, the Montreal coaching staff, his fiancée Hanna, friends and fans, the media, were there when it counted. All supportive.

He'd attend some Canadiens home games in Montreal, show up to watch practices, and even go out to lunch with teammates when he was in an out-cycle away from treatments. He even laced up his skates and hit the Molson Centre pond, yanking the doctor's arm for approval, sort of a Christmas present to himself in December. The a goal in the back of his mind that his nightmare could some time turn into a dream-come-true ending kept looking better.

"Six or seven weeks ago we thought we may have a chance to be here but we'd have to see how my body would react first," he said.

That's when the Canadiens' conditioning coach, Scott Livingston, put Koivu on a program of drills and exercises. Doctors constantly monitored Koivu's progress and blood count while new team owner George Gillett hired Lance Armstrong's trainer, Chris Carmichael, to see if there could be another miracle in the making.

He's got a bigger heart than an elephant.

"And I'm starting to get my hair back. Look," he jokes, pointing to his full head of short blonde locks. At 27, he's already got more than some people his age.

Andre Savard was right. Koivu's got guts.

Hands down, by acclamation, Koivu should win this year's Bill Masterton Trophy, voted annually by selected hockey beat writers to the NHL player who exemplifies qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.

Perfect example

Bruins coach Robbie Ftorek probably put it best when asked about Koivu's performance in a 5-2 Montreal win Thursday night, and the importance of his return to the Canadiens in time for the playoffs.

"Koivu's always been a talent," said Ftorek. "Now he's an inspiration."

Not just to his Montreal teammates, but to other cancer victims.

Shortly after leaving Merrimack College where the Bruins and a few Canadiens practiced on Friday, driving along Route 495, a black pickup truck pulled up alongside driven by a friend, pointing out the window to the next exit. Stopping a short time later, he said he was headed for Holy Family Hospital in Methuen where his father was a patient, just diagnosed with cancer. He wanted to know if there was time to stop by to say hello because his dad would be surprised.

Bud Crotty, 67, was a fearless racecar driver in his day and a good one. But now he's scared.

Both he and his son also are hockey fans. Recounting Koivu's comeback story during the impromptu visit, the dad smiled and seemed a bit more at ease.

"Isn't that something, he came back like that," said Crotty Sr. "I guess, with the advances in medicine today, he's proof that you can make it."

Relaying the story to Koivu yesterday, the Canadiens' star immediately turned serious.

"That, to me, means the most," he said, his blue eyes lighting up. "To be able to be an inspiration, to give people hope, that's what I want to get involved with as time goes on.

"There's a long way to go but I've talked to a lot of people who have won the battle with cancer. That's something to think about. If I can help people, that's bigger than anything."

Koivu also insists on focusing on some medicine that doesn't come in the form of a needle or a pill.

"The one thing I tried to do, right from the beginning when they told me what I had -- I'd tell this to that man or anybody else, because it's how I look at life now -- is to find something every day to smile about.

"I don't care what it is," he said. "Find something. Smile about it. That's a help, believe me."

He isn't just talking. That's experience. Koivu knows the score.

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