IRVINE — Ducks assistant coach Mike Stothers stood in a room at Great Park Ice with a handful of media members and several team staffers and started to talk about the series of events leading to his recent diagnosis with stage three melanoma of the lymph node.
Stothers got to the day he heard the news from his oncologist Maki Yamamoto on Feb. 21 when the Ducks were in Tampa, only a few hours before their game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“Give me a moment,” said an emotional Stothers on Saturday, pausing for a few seconds.
Stothers, who turned 61 in February, is in charge of the defensemen and penalty-killing units.
In a three-plus decades coaching career, Stothers is of an old-school ethic, using tough love when necessary but possessing genuine affection for the well-being of his players. When he informed the Ducks’ players after practice in Raleigh, N.C., on Feb. 24, Stothers did so with two goals in mind: to let them know of his own situation, but also urging them to be aware of their own health and to get checked out if something doesn’t feel right.
“I’m a dad, and my whole life as a player I was a protector of my teammates and stuff like that,” Stothers said. “Figuring now maybe it’s time to help protect others from something turning into more than it should have been, if you could have got to it early and dealt with it then.”
Said Ducks coach Dallas Eakins: “He’s one of the most giving, selfless people I know. For him to handle it this way is not surprising at all. His main concern right now is, ‘How can I help someone else get ahead of where I am right now?’
“That’s all you need to know about that man.”
Defenseman Cam Fowler said there were tears and a lot of emotion when Stothers spoke to the players in Raleigh. Stothers finished the meeting by hugging each of the players, Fowler said.
“It hit us pretty hard,” Fowler said. “He’s a big part of the organization – heart-and-soul guy that means a lot to all…
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