Former NHL prospect resolute in battle with ALS

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From: NHL.com > News
Former NHL prospect resolute in battle with ALS
Scott Matzka keeping up personal fight against Lou Gehrig's disease while trying to spread awareness
by Nicholas J. Cotsonika @cotsonika / NHL.com Columnist
September 1st, 2016

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The first sign something was wrong probably came in the fall of 2013. Scott Matzka was putting up drywall in his garage when a finger on his right hand locked up.

More signs appeared early in 2014. If he opened the middle console in his car and reached for something, his right forearm cramped. If he clenched his right hand into a fist, he couldn't release it easily.

He was 35 then, married with two young children in Kalamazoo, Michigan, starting a new job as a consultant in the auto industry. He was two years removed from a career as a professional hockey player that included a training camp with the Nashville Predators, still an athletic man who ran, lifted weights, played racquetball.

He was used to his body obeying orders better than the average person, but he also was in tune with his body more than the average person. So he started researching on the internet, plugging in his symptoms.

What kept popping up was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, named for the New York Yankees great who died of the affliction in 1941, two weeks short of his 38th birthday.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to the loss of muscle control, paralysis and death. There is no cure.

Eventually, the diagnosis was confirmed.

Matzka is 38 now and wears braces on the legs that skated for four seasons at the University of Michigan, where he assisted on the overtime goal that won the 1998 NCAA Championship and served as an alternate captain. His left leg always needs a brace; his right needs one if he has to walk more than 100 yards. ...

For a long time, Matzka hesitated to talk about any of this, if only because every time he did, he ruined someone's day. But now, with a positive attitude, he's sharing his story to raise money for his medical care, to raise awareness of the disease and money for research, and to help healthy people appreciate what they have.

"I wish I could just live my life in Kalamazoo and ... not have to get out and do this," he said Wednesday in a coffee shop not far from where he played in college. "But I feel like I've been given a real opportunity that if I didn't grab it, I'd feel like, man, I would …

"I would regret …

"I would regret that forever." ...


Read more at: https://www.nhl.com/news/scott-matzka-f ... -281500560