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Gino Fighting His Toughest Battle


Drive-By Body Pierce

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Terrible news. Via @willesonsports: Gino Odjicks last fight: Beloved Canucks enforcer battles terminal heart disease http://www.theprovince.com/sports/hockey/canucks-hockey/Gino+Odjick+last+fight+Beloved+Canucks/9979028/story.html

A sad day, my condolences to family and friends.

I just wanted this info to be in the first post:

You can support Gino in three ways.

By writing to him: http://nucksnation.net/gino

By donating to the Gino Strong Fund: http://www.gofundme.com/ginostrong

By donating to the Canucks for Kids Fund: http://canucks.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=39934

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Really sad story.

Gino Odjick enters the cafeteria at Vancouver General Hospital with the aid of a walker.

He’s toting an oxygen tank and he shows the signs of two weeks of chemotherapy. At this moment, it’s hard to reconcile the man you see with the enforcer who took on all comers and became one of the most popular players in Vancouver Canucks’ history.

But then he speaks. Then you know the fighter remains.

“I’m in good spirits and I”m going to do the best I can to fight this,” says Odjick. “Just because it’s diagnosed one way doesn’t mean it’s going to go that way.

“I’ll let the chips fall where they may. I’m prepared. I’m not accepting it yet but I’m prepared.”

Earlier in the day, his good friend Pat Quinn talked about Odjick’s spirit; how, through his many battles on and off the ice, there was something indomitable about his former player. You still see this. It’s hard when you see what disease has done to him but there remains a big part of the man who will not be defeated.

Odjick has been told his time might be measured in months, if not weeks. In mid-April, shortly after the ceremony that inducted Quinn into the Canucks’ Ring of Honour, he became short of breath. Two days later he was diagnosed with amyloidsis, a rare heart condition in which a protein, produced in the bone marrow, forms deposits in the heart. The form he has is considered terminal.

A heart transplant won’t work. Neither will a bone-marrow transplant. There are experimental treatments in Europe but the best hope is doctors can buy Odjick some time.

“You don’t think when you’re 43 years old they’re going to tell you you’ve got one year to live,” he says. “It was the last thing on my mind. There’s been a lot of soul searching.”

He’s asked if he’s found any answers.

“Not yet. All I can do is the best I can do every day. But there comes a point when I have to make plans to enjoy the last year and that’s where we’re at right now.”

Odjick, of course, has lived a thousand lives during his 43 years. He was born on an Algonquin reserve just outside of Maniwaki, Que., before leaving to play in Hawkesbury as a 16-year-old. After two seasons with Laval in the Quebec league, the Canucks made him a fifth-round draft pick in the 1990 draft. Odjick would be called up from Milwaukee partway through the next season. He would play in Vancouver for eight years.

“The amazing thing about Gino is how fast he improved,” said Canucks president Trevor Linden, Odjick’s teammate through the ’90s. “When he got called up we were thinking, ‘How’s he going to help us?’ Then we saw how hard he played and his heart. And he kept getting better.”

He wasn’t a star. Odjick played 605 NHL games because he was a much better fighter than a player. But he could fill a third- or fourth-line role and in 1993-94, his most productive season, he scored 16 goals.

www.theprovince.com/sports/hockey/canucks-hockey/Gino+Odjick+last+fight+Beloved+Canucks/9979028/story.html

I know this is going to sound like a very Twitter thing to do but lets show support for Gino by getting #prayforgino trending on twitter

If people don't want to completely get it.

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Met him a couple of times at martial arts tournaments that I was competing in (he was a spectator/fan).... he was always so nice and humble, asking lots of questions.

Pretty sad, hope that he gets as much comfort as possible form his friends and family.

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