Talking about illness with teammates ‘was hard, but I did it’
Jean-Robin Mantha had participated regularly in pre-season sessions, so Patrick Grandmaître was surprised when the 22-yearold defenceman told his Ottawa Gee-Gees hockey team coach he wanted to talk before practice the next day.
Grandmaître expected something “hockey-related.” What he heard was “testicular cancer.”
“First I had to tell the coach because I couldn’t practise anymore,” Mantha said. “He asked me, ‘Do you want to tell the guys, or do you want to keep it low.’ I said, ‘The guys have to know this. I just can’t disappear like that.’ At the beginning, I didn’t want to tell anybody about this except my family and my close friends, but, the further I went … It was the first week of chemo, it made me think a lot because now all the world was upside down, and I thought maybe I could open up.
“I was scared to open up, but I said maybe I could do something about this and do something positive.”
Grandmaître said Mantha reassured his teammates even as he dropped the news about his cancer on them in September. He knew what he was dealing with and had the information he needed.
“For a lot of us, we don’t really know what that means: chemo,” Grandmaître said.
“We know that it’s to deal with cancer, but … we’re getting ready for games and practices and stuff, and J.R.’s back home recuperating, or he’s at the hospital, getting his chemo treatment.
“I remind the guys quite often, say, ‘You know, you think this is tough? Just remember where J.R. is right now, just remember what J.R. is dealing with. It’s not that bad that we’re down a goal, it’s not that bad that we are tired and on the road, it’s not that bad that we have a busy week with mid-terms and stuff like that.’”
Fortunately, Mantha remains able to tell his own story and to be hopeful of not only a recovery, but also a return to the ice with the Gee-Gees.
It wasn’t like that for Mélisa Kingsley, a Gee-Gees women’s hockey-team player who died Oct. 31, slightly more than two years after she was diagnosed with sarcoma.
Men’s squad members likely didn’t know Kingsley well because she spent a lot of time at home in Sudbury after her diagnosis in 2016, Grandmaître said, but they would be familiar with other GeeGees women’s players who were her friends and teammates.
The team dressing rooms are separated by a short hallway, and Grandmaître’s office is next to that of women’s coach Yanick Evola, a teammate with the St. Francis Xavier X-Men in 200002.
Grandmaître said they talked about Kingsley a lot as her death became imminent.
“It was more, ‘How are you doing things? Do you need my help?’ That kind of fraternity,” Grandmaître said.
“We made sure that we were there for them if they needed our help for anything, just trying to support them and talking to these girls.
“Before they went to say their final goodbyes to Mélisa, we had our team shaking hands and giving hugs to the girls before they got on that dreadful bus ride to go do that … Just telling your buddies or your fellow university mates that you’re there for them.”