“I feel blessed that I’ve been hit with this.”<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n
Even the fashionably late were at their seats on time. A special buzz was in the air. A local radio station had distributed thousands of signs bearing the words “WELCOME BACK COACH” and fans were waving them throughout Alfond Arena.<\/p>\n
It was Homecoming Weekend at the University of Maine, but this was a homecoming to beat all homecomings. Coach Shawn Walsh, who had missed the first four games of the season while undergoing a second 20-day cycle of immunotherapy treatments for kidney cancer, was miraculously returning to the Maine bench just six days after his last dose of Interleukin-2.<\/p>\n
The Alfond horn sounded, but was immediately drowned out by the roar of the fans, eager to show support, admiration and appreciation for their hero. Shawn Walsh was where he wanted to be, where his players wanted him to be and where the fans wanted him to be: in his familiar position behind the Black Bear bench.<\/p>\n
NCAA protocol dictated the introductions of the visiting Ohio State University starters and coach John Markell. The Maine-iaks in the balcony chanted, as is their wont, “Big deal! So what! Boring!”<\/p>\n
As the introductions turned to the Maine starters, the band cranked it up and the fans cheered.<\/p>\n
Then it was time.<\/p>\n
Some couldn’t even hear public address announcer Jim Baines as the volume grew, but that was of little consequence. Every last person in the house knew the name of Shawn Walsh. He needed no introduction. On their feet cheering, the Alfond Arena faithful welcomed him back in a thunderously enthusiastic, extended appreciation.<\/p>\n
“I was grateful for that reception,” said Walsh after the game. “It was good to be back. The reception by the fans was fantastic.<\/p>\n
“But it was good to get through that and have it be just hockey again.”<\/p>\n
Having it “just be hockey again” is what Walsh has wanted since being diagnosed with cancer in late June. Given his druthers, he’d sooner don the skates and run a two-hour practice like he did just four days after his last treatment than elaborate on the nasty side effects of Interleukin-2. <\/p>\n
“Running practice was invigorating,” he said. “I’m glad my doctors gave me the approval to go ahead so I can enjoy what I enjoy doing in life. It’s just so wonderful to be back.<\/p>\n
“Intrinsically I think I feel better than I did when we won the national championship just because the therapy is over and I don’t have to go through that again. I’m back and coaching.<\/p>\n
“To have gone through the last four months is a mountain that is over with. I don’t want to look back on it too much, other than to appreciate how thankful I am of my wife and her family and Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, who hosted both of us [in California during the treatments]. They opened up themselves unselfishly and their family to us for almost a two and a half- or three-month period.”<\/p>\n