CODY HODGSON IN HINDSIGHT
Why ex-Canuck deserves a second look
Cody Hodgson has been telling his story for the better part of 30 minutes, reliving the pain and confusion, reliving the fear and the darkness, when he’s asked if he’s ever bitter about the way his hockey career ended.
There’s a pause at the end of the telephone line.
“I can’t look at it like that,” Hodgson finally says. “I got six years in the NHL and, to be honest, I was lucky. I see some of the people that deal with this on a regular basis; not being able to play hockey is such a tiny thing. I think I’ve lived a blessed life.”
Blessed, he says. As we’ll see, that’s an interesting perspective, but if you think you know Hodgson based on his time with the Vancouver Canucks, we invite you to think again.
This story was originally supposed to be a couple paragraphs in another piece for our Canucks At 50 series. That yarn highlighted Game 8, the regular-season meeting in January of 2012 between the Canucks and Bruins in Boston that followed the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, a game in which Hodgson scored the game-winning goal, drew another assist and was among the best players on the ice.
That game also represented the high-water mark of Hodgson’s star-crossed career with the Canucks. Selected 10th overall in the 2008 draft by first-year GM Mike Gillis, the centre was supposed to be a building block for the new regime, a player who impressed with his intelligence, skill and character.
The honeymoon between the Canucks and Hodgson, however, was short-lived.
After returning to Brampton, and after a starring turn with Team Canada at the 2009 World Juniors in Ottawa, Hodgson injured his back training in the off-season, setting loose a series of events that strained his relationship with the organization and eventually led to a deadline deal with Buffalo for Zack Kassian, just two months after his big game in Boston.
Hodgson has since passed into Canucks annals as another failed first-rounder. There was also the insinuation he was an entitled prima donna. He just wishes that was the case.
Four years after the trade with Buffalo, Hodgson, now in Nashville, was diagnosed with malignant hyperthermia (MH), a condition he inherited from his father Chris that produces muscle rigidity, fever and coronary stress. In Hodgson’s case, it was set off by intense physical activity — which is kind of a problem for a professional hockey player.
He has since become a spokesman for the disease and features in a documentary titled Hodgson that was produced to raise awareness of MH.
That, at least, is the short version of Hodgson’s story. The longer one takes some telling.
“Looking back, you can see symptoms since when I was a kid,” he says. “You never knew exactly what it is but you deal with muscle cramps and tightness your whole life. It wasn’t normal.
“In my case, it got worse. I tore five muscles my final year (in Nashville). I’d bend over and the muscles would tear. It got pretty scary at the end, to tell you the truth.”
It now seems the back injury that started his problems with the Canucks was a byproduct of the MH condition. Originally it was misdiagnosed as a bulging disc. Hodgson said, no, it’s something else. The Canucks weren’t
exactly sympathetic to his cause but they did allow him to begin training with former NHLer Gary Roberts in the summer of 2010 and the back improved for a while.
“I felt as good as I ever felt in the NHL at that time,” Hodgson says of the 2011-12 season. “I felt healthy, strong and fast. That buildup (to the game against the Bruins) was a lot of fun.”
But something had been broken with the Canucks. Despite decent numbers in his rookie season (16-17-33 in 63 games) Hodgson was dealt to Buffalo at the deadline for the bigger, meaner Kassian. With the Sabres, a similar pattern emerged: reasonable production commingled with injury problems. After three-plus seasons with the Sabres, he signed a freeagent deal with the Predators.
A year later he was forced into retirement. He was 26.
“In Nashville, they tested me for brain tumours, lung cancer, all these terrible things,” he says. “When they told me I had MH, at least I knew I was going to survive. I wouldn’t be able to play hockey, but I’ll survive.”
He was diagnosed at Toronto General Hospital by Dr. Sheila Riazi, one of the world’s recognized authorities on MH.
“They told me, I don’t know how you were playing hockey,” he says. “This could kill you.”
Hodgson spent a year adjusting to a new normal. The Predators gave him a job in their Little Preds Learn to Play program. He became a spokesman for the RYR-1 Foundation (MH is caused by a mutation of the RYR-1 gene), the non-profit that raises money for MH research.
“Obviously I can’t work out the same way,” Hodgson says. “I do this executive workout. I’m not supposed to do any strenuous exercise but I think I’d lose my mind if I didn’t do anything.
“They said this condition gets worse with age. I don’t know if that’s true.”
But he knows he has this day and his cause. There’s a scene in the documentary that shows the former Canuck playing with a group of kids who suffer from MH. Some are in wheelchairs. Some have respirators. Some are in scooters. Kids, all of them.
And there’s Hodgson, still young, still strong and smiling, living his blessed life.