Iron Sabre
Ex-star LaFontaine going the distance for
sick kids
By Brian Cazeneuve - Inside Hockey for SI.com
Posted: Wednesday November 1, 2006 5:24PM
Eight years after he retired from the NHL, Pat
LaFontaine is still a complete player: swimming,
cycling, running, caring. He will be in Panama
City, Florida on Saturday to compete in an
Ironman Triathlon event. Never mind slashes,
hooks, cross-checks and people named Volek
trying to finish your pinpoint passes.
LaFontaine will swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles
and run 26.2 miles with a goal time of 12 hours
20 minutes.
The sweat and blisters are for the organization
that he started six years ago -- Companions in
Courage -- and for the cause that spawned it
since 1993. That year, while LaFontaine was
playing for the Sabres, he was undergoing rehab
for a reconstructed knee when he met Robert
Schwegler, a 12-year-old bone marrow transplant
patient who was in a hospital isolation room in
Buffalo.
To pass the time, Robert and his idol regularly
played video hockey, with Robert assuming the
role of LaFontaine and his ex-Sabres teammate
Alexander Mogilny. One day, a nurse began to
thank LaFontaine for his time and suddenly broke
down.
"You don't understand, I'm here all the time,"
she told him. "This is the only time he smiles."
Schwegler passed away six months later and
LaFontaine began to donate his time and money to
helping patients like him.
As a Sabre, LaFontaine often rented luxury boxes
for patients who were well enough to watch
Buffalo's home games. He envisioned a chance to
become more involved after his retirement from
hockey, just as he fancied completing a
triathlon around the time of his 40th birthday.
He began Companions in Courage in 2000 and in
the last three years has devoted time to
building Lion's Den rooms -- respites for
children with cancer and life-threatening
illnesses. To date, the organization has built
rooms at the Buffalo Children's Hospital and the
Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in Westchester,
NY with a third one at Columbia Presbyterian in
New York City in the works, with hopes for as
many as eight rooms in the next three years.
The rooms have four components: Xbox games with
headsets to play solo or against kids in other
hospitals; personal computers for patients to
send email, play music or do homework; a Windows
Media Center with a flat-panel video screen on
which they can get, among other things, an
exclusive live feed from an aquarium; and a
videopod conferencing option that allows them to
conference with family, friends and celebrities.
"We wanted the room to be an oasis, a safe haven
for kids to escape," LaFontaine says. "They're
colorful, cheerful, something that looks as far
from a hospital room as possible, a place where
a kid can connect to the outside world and just
be a kid."
From time to time, people remind LaFontaine how
much his good works have impacted them. Last
March, just hours after the Sabres retired his
jersey No. 16, he went out to celebrate with
friends and family close to HSBC Arena. A man he
didn't know offered to buy LaFontaine a drink
and told him he'd been a patient at Children's
Hospital in Buffalo when LaFontaine bought a box
in the luxury suites for some of the patients
there.
To raise funds, LaFontaine has solicited
donations from the corporate world and received
at least one large gift for each of the three
rooms: George Ross, Donald Trump's right hand
man on The Apprentice, helped build the room in
Westchester; Sabres owner Tom Golisano supported
the one at Buffalo Children's Hospital; and
Morgan Stanley donated to help build the one in
New York City. In addition, LaFontaine wrote a
book about it -- Companions in Courage -- in
2003 with all proceeds going to the
organization. He has hosted a billiards night, a
casino night, a golf tournament and even a pond
hockey tournament on his own backyard rink where
corporate groups have flown in to skate 3-on-3
against the likes of actors Michael J. Fox and
Dennis Leary and former players Clark Gilles,
Glenn Anderson and Cam Neely.
The triathlon fulfills a dual purpose.
LaFontaine had always pondered the vague notion
of completing a triathlon after he retired, but
he left the game prematurely after a series of
concussions. He had heard the story of a
72-year-old man and a 70-year-old nun who
finished an Ironman competition after dark and
was inspired to run his own. Each time, he
raised money for his charity and is expecting to
pull in $45,000 for his effort this weekend.
"Of course people think I'm crazy," he says.
Mike Richter [the former Rangers goaltender who
also retired because of concussions] wants to do
a triathlon, so it proves you have to hit your
head pretty hard to be able to do it. My agent
(and Godparent of LaFontaine's children) Donnie
Meehan sent me a donation and an additional $20
so I could get my head fixed."
LaFontaine continues: "Hockey players spend time
on exercise bikes, but we are not built to run
and swim. There are times I think I spent 15
years as a pro athlete. I don't need this. But
what gets me through training or those moments
when you cramp up a little bit is the thought
that, okay, there's a greater cause here. Kids
are worrying about much more the sore muscles
and I'm telling them to keep going."
Even in retirement, the man who scored over a
thousand points in a brilliant NHL career is
still racking up valuable assists.
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