Flames goalie coach offers Bickell support
Sigalet, who’s lived with MS since 2003, tells Canes player to ‘never give up!’
It wasn’t long after the news broke that Jordan Sigalet reached out to Bryan Bickell.
The National Hockey League community is small.
But the community of professional hockey players dealing with, and affected by, multiple sclerosis is even smaller.
“I remember the exact moment it happened to me,” the Calgary Flames goalie coach was saying on Tuesday, during a quiet moment before team hit the ice to face the Minnesota Wild.
“I didn’t really know anyone with the disease when it happened to me. I had no one to relate to. I just wanted to let him know I was there … I did the same thing with Josh Harding. If they need something to chat about, I’m there.”
Bickell, 30, was recently diagnosed with the incurable disease — the same one that the former Wild netminder deals with every day; the same diagnosis that Sigalet has persevered through since his junior year at Bowling Green in 2003.
MS is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, affecting the brain and spinal cord.
According to the MS Society of Canada website, it is unpredictable and can cause symptoms such as extreme fatigue, lack of co-ordination, weakness, tingling, impaired sensation, vision problems, cognitive impairment and mood changes.
It is estimated that 100,000 Canadians live with the disease, which is most often diagnosed in people from age 15 to 40. These days, Sigalet is coping. He has numbness in his hands and feet; vision problems, balance, and pain occur periodically. But at the moment of his diagnosis?
An understandable sense of confusion and fear.
“Especially when you don’t know much about the disease,” he said.
“You always hear about it but when you hear you have MS, you don’t really know what it is, what it’s going to do to you. It’s so different for everyone. You don’t know what tomorrow holds for you. It’s hard to keep that positive attitude sometimes because you don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring.”
However the 35-year-old, a seventh-round draft pick of the Boston Bruins in 2001, has persevered admirably.
He gutted out a professional hockey career, including his only NHL appearance in 2006, and played in the American Hockey League and, briefly, in Europe before his retirement in 2009.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced challenges.
He faced a scary moment in 2007 while playing with the Bruins’ AHL team when he overexerted himself during a game and collapsed.
He went through rehab to learn how to walk again.
Sigalet continued his involvement in the game and became a goaltending coach, spending two years in the Western Hockey League with the Everett Silvertips before joining the Flames’ American Hockey League affiliate for three seasons.
This season is his third as the Flames’ goaltending coach.
When Sigalet found out about Bickell’s diagnosis, like many, he had him in his thoughts. He sent out a tweet (@JMSigalet): “Thinking of @bbicks29 and his family today after hearing the news of his MS diagnosis. 13 years ago I received the same news. Never give up!” Sigalet certainly hasn’t. “You have to live each day one at a time,” said the married father of three young children.
“It sounds cliche but you have to when you live with it. You have to look at the positives of it.”
MS has affected the Flames elsewhere.
TJ Brodie’s fiancee Amber was recently diagnosed, while Brad Treliving’s late mother Elaine dealt with the disease.
In conjunction with the Flames Foundation and the team’s Better Halves, Sigalet and his wife Lindsay along with the Brodies are holding a fundraiser — Putting MS On Ice — Dec. 17 at Flames Central.
Bickell, a three-time Stanley Cup champion and currently with the Carolina Hurricanes, is taking some time to deal with the disease.
Sigalet reached out through Hurricanes goalie coach David Marcoux.
Sigalet wants Bickell to know he’s not alone.
“I just sent him a long text and said that things are probably crazy for him right now, with all of the attention he is getting,” Sigalet said.
“I said when things slow down, he can reach out any time.
“I wish him all the best. I’ve told people before that the best place to be or the best time to be diagnosed is when you’re surrounded by a team.
“I think it’s going to help him deal with it better.”