LaFontaine Scores With Courageous Stories

The dizziness and depression subsided, Pat LaFontaine was searching to get on with life after hockey when he got a piece of advice from Cam Neely.

“‘Just sit back,’ he said. ‘It’ll come to you. Let it come,”’ recalled LaFontaine who, like Neely, had his career cut short by injury.

As the former Boston Bruin suggested, inspiration soon struck LaFontaine. Drawing upon his battle to overcome post-concussion syndrome, and his numerous charitable works involving sick children, one of the National Hockey League’s premier scorers of his time settled on his next big goal.

LaFontaine spent the past two years co-writing a book titled, “Companions in Courage,” released in January and already heading into its second printing.

Autobiographical at times, the 266-page book is a collection of stories of athletes--young and old, famous and lesser known--and their abilities to triumph over tremendous odds.

The accounts range from 8-year-old Joey Simonick, who is able to compete in hockey today after undergoing heart transplant surgery six weeks into his life, to NHL great Mario Lemieux, who rallied back from Hodgkin’s disease.

“Our goal was to have this book be almost a dictionary of courage,” LaFontaine said. “When things happen, a lot of times you feel alone: ‘Why me?’ And when you’re in those places, there’s a lot of self-reflection and pain. And so we thought this would be a book where people could tap in.

“And how do you tap into it? It’s through examples.”

LaFontaine’s story applies.

Here was a gifted player who, in the prime of his 15-year career, scored 53 goals and 148 points as captain of the Buffalo Sabres, who wound up admittedly “devastated,” undone by an accumulation of body checks that are inevitable in the game he loves.

The slide began in the autumn of 1996, when he was leveled--his helmeted head bouncing off the ice--by a heavy hit in a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. As a result, LaFontaine suffered his fifth concussion, and third within two years.

Despite being cleared to play by team doctors a week later, a “punch drunk” LaFontaine was in a panic, feeling groggy, experiencing headaches and having trouble maintaining focus. He eventually admitted his distress and confusion to his teammates and coach.

It wasn’t until weeks later that he attended the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and was told to take an extended leave to recuperate, physically and emotionally.

LaFontaine had always been aware of those in need around him. He was a regular visitor to the children’s wards at Buffalo’s Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Buffalo’s Children’s Hospital.

His recovery from post-concussion syndrome and it’s debilitating mental toll, forced him to look inward.

“Someone once said, ‘In order to be truly optimistic, you have to learn the depths of despair,”’ LaFontaine said. “And when I was going through post-concussion, I can tell you, phew, I was down and out. You thought you were losing your mind.

“Going through that, I think what happens to us is, ‘Why?’ One of the things I came to realize was that things do happen for a reason.”

LaFontaine eventually joined the New York Rangers, where he suffered a career-ending concussion the following season.

It proved not the end for him, but simply a new beginning.

“Ideally, I would have loved to play two more years. It was tough letting go,” he said. “I look back, and the greatest thing the game has given me is the opportunity to have met some very special people.”

Many of those people are in the book.

* Zoe Koplowitz, who became a regular participant in the New York City Marathon despite suffering from multiple sclerosis.

* Notah Begay, who overcame racial and cultural barriers to become the first Native American on the PGA Tour.

* And 17-year-old Aaron Graves, who died of cancer in 1999 but inspired those around him. Even during chemotherapy treatments, his passion for soccer and basketball never waned, nor did his enthusiasm for counseling children in a community arts program.