Well done: Ludzik’s roast is on
Former NHL player going ahead with celebrity roast despite failing health as he battles liver ailment
When he was growing up in Etobicoke, Steve Ludzik thought he was going to be the greatest hockey player who ever lived.
“Didn’t happen.”
He wanted to be the greatest coach ever, after he retired as a player and stepped behind the bench.
“Didn’t happen.”
When his coaching career ended, Ludzik set his sights on rivalling Don Cherry as the most-colourful broadcaster. “Didn’t happen.”
Here’s one thing that did happen: the one-time Niagara Falls Flyers sniper and longtime Falls resident was diagnosed with a serious illness at age 39.
Ludzik was taken aback when the doctor told him, “Young man, you have Parkinson’s disease,” then got up and left, leaving Ludzik sitting alone in the examining room.
“I sat there for half an hour wondering if he was coming back,” recalls Ludzik, now 58.
Eventually, the doctor returned, only to say, “You’ve got Parkinson’s disease. I can’t help you.”
Ludzik took that personally. “I said, ‘That’s not good enough,’ ” he said, describing his inspiration for helping start the Parkinson’s rehab centre at Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre in St. Catharines.
The clinic, which bears Ludzik’s name and is free to anyone from Niagara, is funded by the Steve Ludzik Foundation.
More than $1.5 million has been raised through celebrity
“I want them to know because I’m sick, I’m going to the roast. People expect certain things, and I’ve always been the guy who’s found a way to get things done.” STEVE LUDZIK FORMER NHL PLAYER AND COACH
roasts, golf tournaments and golf ball drops since the centre opened in 2013.
“I never thought I would do anything like this, but I will be remembered as a guy who helped a lot of people and raised a lot of money for Parkinson’s, and that’s OK with me,” he said. “More than OK.”
The eighth annual celebrity roast — this time with Ludzik and former Chicago Blackhawks great Steve Larmer the ones squirming in the hot seat — is taking place Friday, Oct. 18 at Club Italia in Niagara Falls.
Ludzik is going ahead with the show despite being told last year he needs a liver transplant.
He is in Stage 4 liver failure, but not yet sick enough to be put on the waiting list for a lifesaving transplant.
“It’s the same disease that killed Walter Payton,” he said, recalling the Hall of Fame Chicago Bears running back who died at age 45 in 1999.
Ludzik became determined to go ahead with the roast after people noticed he had lost a lot of weight and didn’t appear all that healthy.
“I want them to know because I’m sick, I’m going to the roast. People expect certain things, and I’ve always been the guy who’s found a way to get things done,” he said. “I’ve got to find a way.
“We still have to make this thing go, this Parkinson’s clinic, which has done very well.”
Ludzik said he first showed liver damage when he was 20 years old and playing in the Chicago Blackhawks organization
“We found later that the blood enzymes and the counts were high on me from the age of 22 up until 30, but they never said anything to me,” he said. “They just stamped and said, ‘Patient must see doctor.’”
Suffering from liver disease carries a stigma. Sufferers are painted unfairly with the same broad brush.
“The thing that bothers me is when you say you have liver disease, people assume it’s from drinking,” Ludzik said. “My answer to them is, I saw what happened to my dad. He died from that at 50.
“Mine is from scarring from the inside and from years of being untreated.”
He became jaundiced four or five months ago and was admitted to hospital in Toronto.
The doctor said, “‘Ludzy, you know what this is, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’” Ludzik said.
“We’ve been stickhandling around this for a long time putting in stents, plastic pieces.”
As he waits to be placed on the transplant list, Ludzik knows he’s facing long odds.
“They are hard to get, and you have to get lucky. You have to get the right match,” he said. “Mine is more difficult because it’s not the liver per se, it’s the duct that is scarred.
“I have to get a liver and a duct all in one.”
Ludzik finds encouragement from what fellow retired NHLer and Niagara Falls native Derek Sanderson told him.
“He said, ‘You sure have had a lot of curveballs thrown at you. Good thing you know how to hit a curveball,’” Ludzik said.
“I know what I’m facing. I know the odds. I’ve been pretty resilient along the way.”
It remains to be seen whether that resiliency includes having a skin thick enough to be roasted by such former hockey players as Paul Coffey, Rick Dudley, Pat Graham and Clint Malarchuk, as well as an “extra-special guest” who has yet to be announced.
“Nobody tells a story like a hockey player. You have to be able to take it.”
With the tables turned, Ludzik is confident he has what it takes to turn them back around.
“You have to remember, I was a coach and a player. I’m a pretty good person with comebacks, too.”
He never learned why former Niagara Falls Review sports editor Doug Austin lumped Larmer and Ludzik together as “the gold dust twins,” but Ludzik said the description was apt. “He must have known what he was talking about, because when we went pro Larmer got the gold and I got the dust,” quipped Ludzik, already working on his snappy retorts for the roast.
Tickets cost $200 each and include dinner, the show and a chance to mingle with players. A celebrity is being assigned to each table.
“But people get a chance to mingle with all the players. All the players are available to take pictures with.”
There will be an auction of donated prizes
Tickets can be purchased online at thesteveludzikfoundation.org.
About 1,000 people have attended each of the past roasts, including Dino Ciccarelli, Bobby Hull, Mike Keenan, Dave Schultz and Sanderson.