It’s the Cup, and Ducks, that cheer the children

Austin Streit is 9 years old, spending much of the last six years in and out of area hospitals. A month ago he underwent a kidney transplant, making it home only to return with an infection.

“You can count me lucky and unfortunate,” the kid says, oblivious to the tubes that insist on going everywhere he goes.

His dad, Phil, sleeps on a makeshift bed at the end of his son’s. He talks with awe about his son, who has undergone surgery four times, Phil explaining, “we almost lost him.”

Austin spends a good part of the day saying, “Dad, Dad,” this time adding a “yellow alert” to the refrain, and you don’t want to know what that means.

It’s Tuesday, just another Tuesday in the hospital, Phil saying “we’re hopeful the kidney transplant works; we’re keeping positive.”

And that’s when something different happens, the “first time in six years in any hospital that we have ever spent time in -- and that includes one stretch a year long,” Phil says, “that a celebrity visits us.”

Where are all the pro athletes?

Thank heavens the Ducks are wearing their jerseys and carrying the Stanley Cup when they arrive at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA. The Cup, after all, really is a celebrity.

Pictures are taken, autographs given, pucks passed out and the first player to run into Austin is Chris Pronger. Doctors and nurses are on alert in case Pronger checks the kid into the chalkboard.

The kid and the hockey player bond. They both have bushy blond hair, and Pronger, with two kids of his own, makes like he now has a third. Austin tells Pronger he knows the score of the final game. Pronger has been celebrating for five straight days, and it’s unclear whether he’s joking when he asks later what day it is.

The players move down the hall, Sean O’Donnell laying the Cup beside Robert, who doesn’t have the strength to sit up in bed. It’s a great picture, although not one you’d want to take of your child -- unless this was as good as it was going to get on this day.

“I look at these parents,” Pronger says, “and I see the pain on their faces. You know they’d rather have it happening to them than their kids, but maybe a five-minute break or distraction can help.”

What does it mean to a father and son stuck in a hospital to meet a bunch of athletes, who are probably pretty well-known in Canada?

“That was cool,” says Austin, who is now squeezing paint from a tube to spell out “Ducks” on the art project he’s finishing.

Later, after Phil deals with the yellow alert, he talks excitedly about the boost the Ducks’ visit gives him. Until today, he says, the only celebrity to ever visit his son is a baby kangaroo.

“I love my son so much and to see him go through this troubling ordeal,” Phil says, “and then to have someone bigger than life from the outside besides the doctors and nurses stop by and make a real down time much better is, well, just so cool.”

Like father, like son -- they find the experience cool, giving the Ducks two more fans and doubling the team’s fan base.

I FIND myself wanting to write something nice about someone else in addition to the Ducks. More on USC basketball Coach Tim Floyd in a moment. I know it doesn’t happen often here, although I think back to a Wednesday early in 2003, but I really think I can do it.

It helps that I’m in a good mood; USC President Steven Sample has finally gotten back to me.

I called the Prez seven years ago, didn’t get a return call, called again and again and checked back four years later to ask his secretary if she remembered why I initially called -- because I could not.

I got a letter from the Prez thanking the family for an invite to watch Kiddy Up run for the benefit of Mattel’s, but unfortunately, he wrote, a conflict would keep him from attending. No matter, I heard from the Prez.

I also found a $2,000 check in the mail to help the kids in the pediatric cancer ward from reader Edward Rosen and another $500 check from Roger Berg, who wrote, “no reply necessary -- it is satisfaction enough for me just to contribute.”

All this, plus the $5,000 that Marylin and Marty Salvin recently donated because they heard the kids who go to Mattel’s leave better for it. Very cool.

I GO back to Saturday, invites going to the top sports figures in town to watch Kiddy Up try to position himself to win $50,000 for Mattel’s, Mike Garrett, of course, not choosing to RSVP. Even Sample did that.

Floyd goes a monster step forward and shows up at the Los Alamitos Race Course, the first time he’s ever gone to the races. He visits with everyone who has come from the hospital and he’s a hoot. He learns the difference between an exacta and a trifecta, and when the USC coach wins, he hands the ticket to the UCLA doctor so she can cash it for the benefit of the kids.

Racing fan Jeffrey Lee spots the crowd watching Kiddy Up, pulls out his checkbook and donates $50 to Mattel’s. No matter how the race ends, Mattel wins.

Kiddy Up, owned by Ed Allred (99%) and Page 2 (1%), must finish with one of the top 10 times among 118 horses running 350 yards to qualify for the first leg of the Los Al triple crown, the $1-million Ed Burke. It’s 17.545 seconds of high theater.

Kiddy Up not only wins going away -- Floyd joining the family in the winner’s circle just where he belongs -- but Kiddy Up records the fourth fastest time to earn a shot at the $1-million purse on June 23.

This time everyone is invited to the track and to heck with Garrett. If Kiddy Up places in the top six in the Burke, he wins at least $50,000 -- the $50,000 that Allred and the guy who owns the horse’s nose have pledged to give to Mattel’s. Now how cool is that?

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.