From The Archive: A Lot On His Mind

AT FIRST, PHIL KESSEL really didn’t think too much about it.

He knew he wasn’t feeling great and damn, he was having an awful time shaking a cold.

Turns out the lingering cold was the least of his worries.

“Boston was on a road trip, in Montreal, and Phil called and said he thought he felt a lump,” says Phil Kessel Sr.

Those are not exactly the words a father expects to hear from his son when he politely asks, “How ya feelin’?”

“I told him this was nothing to play around with and to get in to see the team’s medical staff right away,” Phil Sr. says.

That’s exactly what the 19-year-old rookie did and it immediately sent his life moving in a most unexpected direction. Kessel, who has been in the hockey spotlight since he was a young teenager, is one of the brightest American-born prospects to burst onto the scene in a long, long time. In fact, there was a time when he rivaled Sidney Crosby in terms of potential and was considered a frontrunner to be the top pick in the 2006 NHL draft.

But suddenly, none of that mattered.

After a series of tests, it was confirmed he had testicular cancer. Statistics suggest is one of the most curable forms of cancer. Try telling that to a 19-year-old, though.

“I went for an ultrasound (test) and they told me they could tell something was there,” Kessel recalls. “I was a little shaken after that. I was upset, I’m not going to lie about that. I’m 19 years old and I certainly didn’t expect anything like this. When it happens to you, it’s really tough to handle.”

Kessel was operated on Dec. 11 and doctors have assured him the operation was a success and the cancer had not spread beyond the testicle. According to the National Cancer Institute in the United States, those who seek early treatment, as Kessel did, have a five-year relative survival rate of 99 per cent. After five years, those who have not had a re-occurrence are considered to be cancer-free.

Although Kessel still has a tough time talking about the experience, he says it made him stop and take stock of life. He admits he was pretty scared when he first learned he had cancer.

“A lot of things go through your mind,” he says. “What’s going to happen to me? Will I be able to play again? I had a feeling I’d be able to play again, but you just don’t know what’s going to happen to you. You don’t know if it’s going to spread or how bad it’s going to end up being.”

To have this thrown at you at such an early age is horrifying. Kessel, though, says he never thought about the disease beating him.

“I never thought about dying,” he says. “I tried to stay positive, though it’s pretty tough to take.

“It does go through your mind, a little bit, but it wasn’t the biggest thing. I didn’t dwell on that. You have to stay positive, even though it’s hard. You have to try. If you are miserable all the time and down, it’s not going to do you any good.”

Adds Phil Sr.: “I think he handled things extremely well. The uncertainty of it was hard for him to handle and like anybody else, he was upset. But I was impressed with the strength he showed.”

Raised Catholic, Kessel says he put his faith in God.

“Everyone in my family was praying for me and hopefully God did something,” he says. “Hopefully all the prayers that were said for me had something to do with it.”

Phil Sr. feels the fact his son was in the NHL and with the Bruins is a true blessing.

“If he were still in college, he may have tended to put it on the backburner and not looked after it right away,” Phil Sr. says. “He would have been focused on the World Junior Championship and may have thought getting medical attention could wait. You know how kids are.”

And that’s what Phil Kessel is at this point…a kid.

“He’s a very young 19 years old,” says veteran teammate Glen Murray. “Some guys come into the league at the same age, a guy like Patrice Bergeron for instance, and they just seem a lot older.”

Nevertheless, Kessel made the Bruins this season, although watching him, you get the feeling the team has rushed him a bit. He has great offensive instincts, but appears to lack the physical maturity to successfully compete against men. The player who scored 41 goals and 73 points in just 31 games two years ago with the American under-18 squad (part of USA Hockey’s national team development program) had seven goals and 11 points in 32 NHL games.

The Bruins love the kid’s upside.

“He’s a dynamic skater with a great shot,” says GM Peter Chiarelli, whose team selected Kessel with the fifth overall draft pick last June. “There’s no reason to think he can’t be a top-line player and top scorer in the NHL. And with the way we have seen him handle this adversity, we think he can be a leader on the hockey team, too.”

Adversity, indeed. You are never prepared for the news you have cancer. Montreal Canadiens star Saku Koivu was 27 in 2001 when he was informed he had abdominal cancer. The Habs captain thinks he has a good idea of what Kessel is going through.

“Cancer is something you obviously know about and you know it affects a lot of people, but you just never think it’s going to happen to you,” Koivu says.

“When you find out you have it, it really takes a while for it all to sink in. When I heard (Kessel) had cancer, it instantly brings back a lot of bad memories. You don’t walk around thinking about it every day, but when you hear about somebody getting it, the memories come flooding back. You just pray they will be OK.”

In mid-January, Koivu was a week away from going for his checkup that will make him cancer-free for five years.

“I’m looking forward to that one,” he says.

Kessel, meanwhile, is concentrating now on getting his career back on track. He played two AHL games with Providence before returning to the NHL against Ottawa Jan. 9, less than a month after his operation. He says some members of the Senators welcomed him back while skating past him in warmups and even wished him the best. But when the puck dropped, it was all business. He skated 17 shifts, 10 minutes and four seconds of playing time, and was belted to the ice by Joe Corvo in the first period and again by Mike Comrie in the second.

“There’s nothing you can do about it…that’s hockey,” Kessel says. “When stuff like that happens, it’s just part of the game.”

It’s called live and learn, something Kessel knows more about now than he did a few months ago.

“Phil is a great kid with lots of natural talent, but I think it’s going to take a while before he adjusts,” Murray says. “He has amazing speed and a great first stride, but sometimes you see him trying to do things he probably got away with in college and they don’t work in the NHL because the game is just so fast. When that happens, you get knocked down by Mike Comrie.”

Like many who have been afflicted with cancer, Kessel says his outlook on life has changed.

“You’ve got to live each day to the fullest,” he says. “Anything can happen to you and it can happen very quickly. You learn not to take things so seriously…I mean, obviously you need to take your career seriously, but you have to stay positive and be relaxed.”

Kessel will be checked regularly by doctors and have his blood work done every couple of months to make sure he remains healthy. He credits friends and family with helping him through his troubled time. He would like to do the same for others, particularly young men who may suspect there is a problem with their body, but might not act on it quickly enough. He has a message for them:

“If your body is not feeling good, always make sure you get checked out because you never know what is wrong with you,” Kessel says. “Anything can be wrong. The big thing is to not be afraid. A lot of people feel symptoms, but they’re afraid to be checked out. That is wrong. Stuff happens and you have to tell people if you’re not feeling well. Don’t think, ‘Oh, I’m all right.’ If your body is not feeling good, you know it. You have to make sure you take care of yourself.”