Feel-Good Story

Saku Koivu’s handshake is firm, the grip of a vital, confident athlete in his prime. The Finnish center’s grip on life is strong too, a gift he will never again take for granted.

What he thought was food poisoning when he became ill during a transatlantic flight last September was diagnosed as intra-abdominal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma--cancerous cells in his abdomen. With frightening suddenness, the Montreal Canadiens’ captain was thrown into a life of needle sticks, hospital beds and chemotherapy treatments. Days he lost his hair and was too weak to sit up.

Days he wondered on which side of the 50-50 survival equation he’d fall.

“When the doctor told me, it was kind of like everything stopped,” he said. “I felt like I was by myself for a moment. When you find out something like that, it’s a shocking moment. It takes time to go through it and get used to the idea you have something like that.”

Although his teammates rallied around him, the ultimate team player had to take this journey alone.

“I don’t think he tries to relate it to other guys because other guys can’t relate to what he’s gone through,” defenseman Sheldon Souray said. “But when he speaks, people listen, because he’s been through a lot.

“The courage and the character he has, all of us wish we have what he has.”

In September, Koivu was wondering if he would die. Hockey was an afterthought. Today he leads the Canadiens in playoff scoring with 10 points and Montreal leads the Carolina Hurricanes, 2-1, in an Eastern Conference semifinal series which resumes tonight at the Molson Centre. “It’s just magical,” Souray said.

Because of Koivu, the Canadiens have become sentimental favorites this spring. A late-season surge got them the last conference playoff berth, and a gritty, relentless effort enabled them to upset the top-seeded Boston Bruins in the first round. But no playoff victory can match Koivu’s triumph in returning to the lineup April 9, seven months after his world turned upside down.

“There’s always times when you’re by yourself and you think, ‘Is he doing OK?’” defenseman Craig Rivet said. “Once you have cancer, I think you’re always going to be concerned. But right now, he looks great. He looks strong physically and mentally, and we’re happy to have him back. He’s a big inspiration to a lot of people, especially to our hockey club.”

He wouldn’t have come back to be a cheerleader. He has been aggressive, involved, spirited, as always. In the first round, his three-point performance and fiery speech during a timeout rallied the Canadiens from a two-goal deficit in the third period of Game 3 to a 5-3 victory, and he assisted on both goals in Montreal’s 2-1 series-clinching victory. He never ceases to amaze his teammates, especially those who saw him at his lowest ebb.

“It’s incredible,” Rivet said. “Right from the first chemo session, when he was violently, violently ill. For the first one, he basically had to lie in a room with the lights off because it hurt his eyes and had headaches that were so strong.

“To where he is now, strong, fit, you look at him and he’s back to his old self. He’s kidding, joking, wrestling, the whole works. It’s really a wonderful story.”

At first glance, Koivu blends in with the throng in the Canadiens’ locker room. Like most, he has a scraggly playoff beard. He wears showy, high-tech athletic shoes. Even his bristly blond hair, growing back rapidly after the chemotherapy, doesn’t look odd among an array of hairstyles.

But he is not like his teammates, as much as he wants to be.

He joked that surviving cancer means “I can say whatever I want now and they’re just going to listen. They can’t say anything bad.” In truth, he wants respect, not pity.

“I’m sure they see me differently now, and it’s normal,” said Koivu, a 1993 Montreal draft pick who has been a fan favorite since his 1995 NHL debut.

“But at the same time, I hope they see me as a teammate, as one of the players, and as a friend, and not as a person that had cancer. I want to get back to a normal life. I want to get back to the things I used to do and be treated the way I used to be.”

That he would be playing hockey again so soon seemed impossible after he heard his diagnosis and began the debilitating treatments. “I don’t think you can pick one thing that was the worst,” he said. “I was really sick at the beginning, and those days were physically the toughest. Some days you just don’t feel good. It’s a long battle.”

When he visited the Molson Centre for the Canadiens’ home opener in October “he was pretty fragile,” Souray said. When he began to feel better and got doctors’ approval to work out, teammates were delighted to see him but didn’t dare hope he would return this season. He had always been upbeat, but they knew he’d have to regain the muscle tone, stamina and 20 pounds he had lost.

“When he was going through it, I just thought of him being happy and healthy and not worrying about if he was ever going to play for us again,” Rivet said. “I just wanted him to live a long and happy life....

“When you sat at home alone at night and you’re thinking, you’re very nervous and scared. But when you were with him, you just knew the guy was going to get through it. You couldn’t see it go any other way.”

Being at the rink accelerated Koivu’s psychological healing. For the physical aspects, he worked with trainer Chris Carmichael, who helped Tour de France cycling champion Lance Armstrong regain his fitness after testicular cancer.

When the chemo ended and he was told he was in remission, he was afraid to tempt fate and pinpoint a date for his return. “You never know what you might face the next day,” said Koivu, who has blood tests every few weeks and will undergo comprehensive tests after the season. “You don’t want to get your hopes too high.”

His hopes were realized, and he returned to a roaring ovation with three games left in the season. Although his strength hasn’t fully returned and he lost some of the adrenaline that carried him through his first few games, he takes hits and gives them, asking no favors and getting none. “I know they’re not going to treat me any different than the other guys,” he said of opponents.

Yet, he is different. Unlike them, he wonders if cancer will bedevil him again.

“Sometimes you do think about it. Sometimes when things are going really good,” he said. “I’m sure when time goes on, you learn to live with that....

“I have a huge experience in my life, which, if you haven’t gone through it, you don’t know what it means. You have to go through it and see what it is. It’s something I’m going to have with me the rest of my life. It made me a different person. I do appreciate small things more. Small adversity or one bad game is not going to ruin my day.... Every game is special to me right now.”