Eddie Olczyk - Eddie Olczyk: Beating the Odds in Hockey and in Life

My ultimate purpose with this book is to try to inspire as many people as I can who are making life-altering decisions and choices and facing obstacles at every turn. If I can make one person laugh, cry, or love or believe more in themselves or someone else, I have scored the most important goal of my life.

E.O.

To my wife, Jane, who is the Hall of Famer in the Lefko family, and our great children, Ben and Shayna. Their belief in me is what makes me write books and tell stories. Words matter!

P.L.

Contents

Foreword by Pat Foley

Your life is perfect. Youre 51 years old. You married the love of your life. You and Diana raised four outstanding kids. You were drafted third overall by the Chicago Blackhawks, the team you cheered for as a child. You played the first and last game of a terrific 1,000-plus-game career for them, a career that put you in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. You have a broadcasting career that has you working for your favorite team, and that evolved into you becoming an award-winning network analyst. Not just for one sport but two, hockey and your other love, horse racing. You are the only person on television who can say that. Perfect.

Then all of a sudden, your world is shaken. Your future is in doubt. Stage 3 colon cancer.

What does somebody do when a friend has a bomb like that dropped in their lap? All I could think was, be there for Eddie. Be a friend, be supportive, be uplifting. So when I called him every day, I had one goal: I tried to get him laughing because he was as down as anybody could be. Anything to get his mind off his sickness for even a minute. About three weeks into the process I realized I was out of bullets and that Id told him every joke Ive ever heard. So I just found a way to tell him something goofy that happened on the plane or that somebody said.

There were all these people around the National Hockey League asking about him. It was quite remarkable to witness and be a conduit for the amount of concern and love he generated around the league. I told them all, Call him, hes got time. Those calls really helped him, and they happened because people had found out what I had known since 1984: hes a good guy.

When he was diagnosed with colon cancer, he chose to go public with it. Many would have wanted to fight that battle privately, but he felt he could help people by raising awarenessand he did. I got a colonoscopy and I know many Blackhawks employees who did the same. Did Eddie Olczyk save lives? I believe that case could be made. God bless him.

Hes always had an open and welcoming soul. But now having dealt with what he did, he is a huge help to people and families who are dealing with cancer. Ive seen many interactions where people leave Eddies company with hope. Thats huge.

I think Eddie is the best analyst in all of sports. Ive always said he has a photographic memory. His ability to dissect and immediately break down plays is remarkable. Its one of his many gifts as a broadcaster. He and I look at broadcasting Blackhawks games the same way: we hope to be instructional and we hope to be entertaining. Hes got a great sense of humor, we both like to laugh, and thats always been a part of what we do. You cant manufacture that. Weve had chemistry since the first time I sat next to him. We both want to do our jobs well and all of that, but were in the entertainment business. We want Blackhawks broadcasts to be fun, something to look forward to, and thats what were aiming for.

Many viewers seemed surprised when we expressed our love for each other on the air during his illness. It was probably a little bit deeper than a lot of broadcast partners would be, but thats how I feel about him. Its wonderful to sit next to a guy who is great at his job and is a great friend. He can trust me and I can trust him. Were both all in, so its really awesome.

You know the one thing thats changed since he went through his battle? We hug more now. Thats cool.

Enjoy this amazing story. And dont forget, Eddie Olczyk saved lives.

Pat Foley is entering his 3 th season as the play-by-play voice of the Chicago Blackhawks. In 2014, he was selected as the Hockey Hall of Fame Foster Hewitt Memorial Award winner for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster. Foley partners with Eddie Olczyk to broadcast all Blackhawks games on NBC Sports Chicago and WGN-TV Channel 9.

Introduction

Weve all been through challenges in our lives. When I was growing upsay, between the ages of eight and 16friends, teammates, their parents, and some coaches told me Id never make it into the National Hockey League. They pointed out that most NHL players born in the 1960s were Canadians, and that few of the Americans who did break through were from Chicago, like I was.

When I was trying out for the U.S. Olympic team as a 16-year-old back in 1983, people told me Id never make it because I was too young.

After I made it to the NHL, some people told me Id eat my way out of the league. Whats wrong with a hungry hockey player? Nothing like a well-done end-cut piece of prime rib, by the way.

People told me I could never be the first American-born lead hockey analyst on national TV in the U.S.

I proved all of those people wrong.

But I did not have one person tell me that I would lose my battle with cancer. Everybody told me I was going to beat this thing, and that was the greatest support Ive had and something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I know there are a lot of people with cancer who are much worse off than I am. I want to help them fight or inspire them when they are battling through the treatments, or keep a person away from this disease by reading my story and getting themselves checked out.

After my diagnosis, I asked my oncologist, So youre telling me I am signing up for six months of hell with chemo in exchange for 50 more years on this earth?

Thats the plan, she said.

Okay, where do I sign? Lets go!

1. The Call

The home phone rang at precisely 7:07 pm on August 4, 2017, and immediately I began to worry.

Because the phone is connected to the TV I was watching, I knew the call was from Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I also knew it couldnt be a good thing to be getting a call on a Friday night from the hospital four days after I had come home from surgery to remove a tumor from my colon.

I was still in bed recovering and my wife, Diana, asked me if I planned to answer the phone. I told her I knew it was Dr. Scott Strong, who had performed the surgery, and that he was probably calling with the results of the biopsy.

Diana answered the phone after five or six rings and then handed it over to me.

Eddie, its Dr. Strong, he said.

Hey, Doc, I said.

You have Stage 3 colon cancer and were recommending six months of chemotherapy.

My first thought was, how long do I have to live?

I knew cancer has four stages, from one to four, with four being the most severe. I was 51 years old, married to Diana for 28 years and 363 days, and we were the proud parents of four wonderful childrenEddie, Tommy, Alexandra, and Nicholas.

How much longer would I live to see them? How do I tell them, my folks, my two brothers, friends, and the entire hockey world that I have Stage 3 colon cancer?

Dr. Strong said I needed to recover for about a month before beginning chemotherapy and that oncologist Dr. Mary Mulcahy would soon be in touch. The call lasted all of about 30 seconds. In that 30 seconds, my entire life flashed before my eyes.