Navigating cancer

Before each game, Saku Koivu straps a brace on his left knee because of an old injury and another on his right knee because of a new one. They are minor inconveniences for the captain of the Montreal Canadiens, nothing compared to what he's already been through.

"You get injured, you get through it," said Koivu, who missed the first 13 games of this season because of the sprained knee ligament. "It's frustrating, but you know you'll get better. But cancer ..."

Koivu is a cancer survivor. He is healthy now, his disease in remission, his blood tested regularly. He takes a regular turn on the ice and is a major player for the Canadiens.

He is long removed from the flight from Finland to Canada for the start of training camp two years ago. That's when he began to feel the pain, a stabbing, persistent pain in his back that soon spread to his stomach. By the time the plane landed, Koivu knew this was serious.

The diagnosis was blunt. Koivu had a buildup of fluid in his abdomen caused by non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Suddenly, his world was turned upside down.

Hockey is a demanding sport. Players tear up knees, break bones, get concussions. Those things heal. But this was stomach cancer, an aggressive form of the disease with a 50-50 chance of survival. That is considerably more daunting than a sprain or a strain.

"It took a day to find out, then four of five more to pin it down," Koivu said. "You can't describe the feeling when you hear. You think it's not happening to you. It took awhile to realize what I was facing and what I would have to go through."

Koivu had eight rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, a draining regimen that left him pale and drawn. His hair fell out. He lost weight. He was no longer a hockey player. He was a cancer patient.

"The chemo was tough," he said. "I felt tired. I lost my appetite. You feel it. The first couple of months, I didn't think of hockey. If I don't play, I don't play."

The priority was to get healthy, to recover and return if he could.

As part of his treatment, he needed a PET scan. The sophisticated imaging device was not available at his hospital in Montreal and he had to travel 100 miles to Sherbrooke, Quebec, for the exam.

That, he decided, would have to change.

Every so often, he would show up at Canadiens practices, maybe take a short skate around the rink at the Molson Centre, a reminder to himself and his team that he was still a part of hockey's most storied franchise.

He was their captain and it would cheer the team to see him around the rink. "I think it made the players realize and appreciate what they have," Koivu said. "Their family members being healthy, that is everything.

"I knew there was a chance I wouldn't play again. You put that out of your mind. You say to yourself, 'I will play."'

And he kept that promise, to himself and to his team.

Koivu missed 79 games that season. He returned in Game No. 80. In a town that takes its hockey seriously, he brought down the house. There was a lengthy standing ovation, a tribute to the courage of the captain.

"It was very emotional," he said.

Last season, he played every game and led the team in scoring with 21 goals and 50 assists, both career highs.

Rarely does a day go by when Koivu does not think about what he went through.

"The cancer was a huge part of my life," he said. "It made me see life differently. I have to live my life as fully as I can."

Part of that involves assuring that cancer patients at Montreal General Hospital don't have to make that trip to Sherbrooke. The Koivu Foundation is raising $2.5 million toward the cost of a PET Scan device for the hospital. "We are $200,000, maybe $300,000 away," he said.

It will be the legacy of one grateful survivor.