Holan Finds Solace Even in Loss : Mighty Ducks: Colorado wins, 3-1, but defenseman with leukemia gets a lift from playing.

Milos Holan shed the weight of a secret Sunday, and Monday night in McNichols Arena it no longer mattered to him how many people in the crowd of 16,000 knew it as they watched him play.

The day before, Holan somberly announced that he has chronic granulocytic leukemia, a slow-progressing but deadly form of the disease that requires a bone-marrow transplant as soon as a donor can be found. But as he emerged from the Mighty Ducks’ dressing room after a 3-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche, Holan smiled and his eyes danced. He had his own victory.

“When I step on the ice, everything’s behind me, and I concentrate on hockey,” he said. “I want to forget on the ice.”

Though he played two of the Ducks’ previous seven games knowing his condition, it somehow seemed different after he widened the circle of those who knew.

“He decided, ‘I’ve had enough of people asking questions, I’ve got to tell the world,’ ” said Rich Winter, Holan’s agent. “A lot of people thought he was worrying about it, thinking about it. Get it out, and you don’t have to hear people whisper behind your back.”

Holan started the game and played a regular defensive shift, as well as one of the points on the power play, the position where the Ducks miss him most. At 24, he has the hardest shot on the team and is one of the team’s top defensemen.

“He’s still a little tentative out there. He’s got to get his shot through and be more assertive with the puck,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “It’s timing; he hasn’t played in many games. He’ll get better, hopefully.”

The Ducks got better as the game went on, after Colorado’s three-goal barrage in the first period led Wilson to pull goalie Guy Hebert, who was coming off his best performance of the season the night before.

“I really don’t have any answers,” Hebert said. “I felt real good coming off last night. I felt good after the first goal, I felt good after the second goal, and I still felt good after the third goal. I didn’t know if I would stay in but I felt good and I wanted to stay in. Ron wanted to make a change and it worked out well; unfortunately, we couldn’t get more than one goal.”

Mikhail Shtalenkov stopped all 12 shots he faced in relief, but the Ducks managed only one goal, scored by Mike Sillinger 1:17 into the second.

Adam Deadmarsh, Mike Ricci and Valery Kamensky scored for Colorado, which has not lost at home.

The Ducks suffered what could be a crucial loss when right wing Valeri Karpov left the ice holding his right forearm after being knocked into the boards from behind. He was taken for X-rays, and the team is concerned he might be out for some time.

The Ducks are trying to proceed as normally as possible for Holan’s sake, and that appears to be working remarkably well, considering the seriousness of his condition.

“I have to pay attention to how he feels,” Wilson said. “I have to try to read if he’s pulling my leg. I have to watch him, decide how I feel he looks. It’s a pretty heavy cross to bear for Milos.”

It didn’t seem quite as heavy to Holan on Monday.

“I talked to my wife this afternoon and she said I have gotten a lot of phone calls from people who want to help me and from a lot of doctors who want to help me out,” he said. “It’s a good feeling when you have support from all these people.”

Holan missed several games with cold symptoms doctors say are unrelated to his leukemia, and two others because of emotional distraction. But doctors are emphatic that, lacking symptoms other than a high white-blood cell count, there is no reason he cannot play. Onset of the acute phase of the disease takes an average of 3 1/2 years but as many as 10.

Holan could have left the team while he waits for a marrow match. But the ice, not the waiting room, is where he feels most comfortable.

“I think it’s true for any athlete, in any sport, it’s a refuge,” Wilson said. “You escape reality a little bit. No matter what’s happening in your life, it doesn’t matter; it’s a different world on the ice.”

Duck Notes

Right wing Joe Sacco was scratched for a third consecutive game but is likely to be back in the lineup Thursday against Dallas because of Valeri Karpov’s injury.