Still rolling with the punches
Comeback from cancer delayed by pandemic, but Brady keeps pushing on
Owen Brady got up early last Sunday morning, strapped on his workout gear and went for a long bike ride.
Had it not been for the continued lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Brady would have been celebrating something that was 18 months in the works. The 17-year-old defenceman would have been participating in the Oshawa Generals rookie camp, his first experience with full contact games since November 2018 when his life was turned upside down by osteosarcoma, a cancer that starts in the cells that form bones.
Since the day he learned he had cancer, growing in his left leg below the knee, Brady has put most of the things in his life on hold and turned his ultra competitive nature toward fighting the disease, and to getting back to playing hockey.
“When (the camp) first got postponed, I was disappointed,” said Brady, a six-foot-four blueliner and the captain of the midget Whitby Wildcats. “But I’ve learned how to roll with the punches, so it wasn’t too big of a deal, even though that weekend was gonna be my coming-back moment. “I was planning with my coaches and with my parents (Chris and Deirdre) … I set a goal with my skating coach (Ashlea Jones) two months prior to the camp. That was going to be the time I would come back and participate in scrimmages and games, full-contact games, at that rookie camp.”
Brady bikes twice a week, once with his parents, who are teachers and advanced cyclists themselves. On Sundays, he goes for longer rides by himself, up to 55 kilometres out and back.
There is something about working out that has put his mind past the devastation of what the cancer did to his body, to his hockey career, and to his life. The workouts require commitment and accountability, and they make him feel better.
He looks like a promising hockey player again, with his dark hair having grown back after his chemo treatments. A year ago, while in hospital, he admitted he had “good days and bad ones.” There were times when he needed to be left alone.
He befriended a three-yearold girl, Roux, who was going through her own battle with cancer, and the two became buddies. He rubbed shoulders with Auston Matthews, the
Leafs superstar who quietly visits Sick Children’s Hospital. And he got to ring the bell — signalling the end of his five rounds of chemotherapy — on Aug. 13. He returned home, and immediately began workout regimens with Jones and former NHL defenceman Paul Ranger.
Doctors had performed 19 hours of surgery on Brady, removing part of the fibula in his right leg to graft onto his left leg, where a tumour had been. They initially told him he would never play hockey again, then gave him a two-year recovery period.
Before the cancer diagnosis, Brady was seen as a potential first-round selection in the OHL draft. The Generals took him in the sixth round last year, though the prospect of playing in the OHL had to be put on hold. Now the high end springsummer league he planned to play in has been cancelled due to the pandemic. And with Oshawa expected to have a team that could challenge for the Memorial Cup next season, Brady might have to weigh the options of limited ice time with the Generals or a more regular role in junior A or midget.
He likely will adjust as he needs to. He has learned to deal with the delays.
“The hardest part is looking back at it and how long I’ve been doing this (recovery and rehab), and how long it takes,” he said. “I know I’m way ahead of the schedules that the doctors and everyone else gave me. But I want to be a person who is going as fast as I can at all times. I was finally engaged in hockey again, so when it gets pushed back again, that’s the hard part.”
Brady makes sure he’s in his garage gym four or more times a week. It’s a sanctuary, a place where things make sense when a lot of other things don’t. And when things weigh heavy on his mind, his room becomes his escape.
“It’s a combination of things, being with friends, with my family or being with myself,” Brady says, when asked about getting through tough times. “I like to work out ... it’s kind of like letting my mind not worry about anything else when I’m working out. I’m a bit of a worrier, like when it comes to school and stuff like that. I like to hang out in my room … my room is like my escape.
“With everything’s that’s happened, there’s two paths you can take. There is the victim path, that it’s so bad that there’s nothing I can do. The path I took is looking forward to the future, because that’s what I can control, and because I can’t change what’s happened in the past.”