Every athlete lives for the feeling of holding a championship trophy over their head.
Some even get to experience what it is actually like.
In 2016, Jacob Buch stood on the ice at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines with the J. Ross Robertson Cup above his own head as the London Knights celebrated their fourth Ontario Hockey League Championship.
Everyone around him was on skates. He had shoes on. Everyone else was in hockey equipment. Buch was in the clothes he wore to the arena that night to watch the team that drafted him in the fifth round of the 2014 OHL Priority Selection.
After Mitch Marner and Christian Dvorak received the championship trophy that night, Buch was the first person they passed it to. Without scoring a single goal or even appearing in a single game for the Knights, Buch had been an inspiration to all of the players surrounding him.
While they were battling Ice Dogs and Otters on their way to a title, Buch was battling cancer.
Just a year and three months later, Buch is still battling. However, his fight is a little different.
It’s now for a roster spot with the London Knights.
“It was iffy. I didn’t know if I would be ready. I put a lot forward this off-season and did a lot that went outside my bubble with my back. I have a rod and screws in my back, I have to be safe,” Buch warns. “But just to be here and be back on the ice competing like this…”
Buch just shrugs and shakes his head. Thinking about the journey can be a little overwhelming.
It has taken one of the roughest roads any 18-year old could imagine, but Buch is back to where he wanted to be all along. He will turn 19 in October and still goes through check-ups every six months, but he was given the go ahead to attend training camp in London and he didn’t have to be asked twice.
Back in hockey equipment with a Knights’ Black Team logo on his chest does have Buch a little speechless.
“I look back a year and a half ago and I was sitting in a hospital bed, so to be here… there aren’t too many words you can say.”
It all started harmlessly. It appeared to be nothing more than a back problem.
“Every hockey player battles through injuries. We tried the normal things like Icy Hot and I did some physio and that would do the trick sometimes, but it just kept coming back,” Buch remembers.
Then came the day when he had no feeling in his legs.
“I went through about seven tests in one day and they told me I had a tumour in my back. I went through back surgery the next day and about a week later they came back and they said the tumour was cancerous, so it wasn’t the best feeling. I knew I just had to strap down and put my best effort forward and knew that I was going to beat it no matter what.”
It was Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare cancer that grows primarily in the bones, cartilage, soft tissue or nerves of adolescents.
While other hockey players Buch’s age were using their athletic ability to crack rosters, he put it to use against cancer. His physical condition became a key in the strategies doctors were able to use in treatment.
“There are different stages of chemotherapy and I was at one of the highest that you could go through. They said it could actually kill some patients if they were to use it on them.”
Buch continued to keep his head up and kept his focus on the end goal of beating his disease.
“It wasn’t a great feeling going through sickness every day and throwing up seven or eight times a day, but I just had to keep battling forward. There were times when I would ask ‘why me’ but you can’t let that get to you.”
Those other players his age were getting bigger and stronger. Through no fault of his own, Buch was going in the other direction.
“I was at 178 pounds and getting ready to come to London (before he was diagnosed). Six months later, I was down to 121 pounds. It wasn’t the best thing to look in the mirror, but it was part of the battle.”
Buch is now a whole lot closer to that 178 mark. He has spent some time in the GOJHL and is now taking that long-awaited shot at the Knights.
London General Manager, Rob Simpson has been following Buch’s progress, hoping to see what has unfolded.
“We talked to him all the way along and he made it very clear that his goal all the way along was to come back to training camp and try to make the team and we are thrilled that he is doing so well.”
Most teams rank character very high on the list of attributes they want to see from prospective players.
“It could have been very easy for him to say at 19 that he had played Jr.B and was now happy be back to play the game for fun,” explains Simpson. “But, he’s not looking at himself as someone who has gone through what he did. He’s just looking at himself as another player competing for a spot.”
It is tough to find a greater example of someone’s character than that.
At 19 years old, and without any previous OHL experience, the road to a place on London’s final roster isn’t going to be an easy one either.
Training camp rosters will be reduced after Wednesday’s scrimmages and Buch’s next goal is to make it past that point. One step at a time and one day at a time. You see the task and hand, you see what is required of you and you do what it takes to keep yourself going.
In his fight with cancer, Jacob Buch proved to be very good at that.
As unfair and as difficult as his experience with the disease was, it will be very useful in the challenge he is facing on the ice at Budweiser Gardens. The challenge he has waited years for.
Comments