A GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a Port Moody hockey player battling brain cancer is almost halfway to its $100,000 goal after just three days.
Mike Armstrong launched the campaign Dec. 24 on behalf of his friend, Wade MacLeod, who was diagnosed with a Grade 4 glioblastoma following surgery earlier this month — the most serious and aggressive form of the disease.
The money will be used to help cover MacLeod's medical expenses and support his wife, Karly, and their two young daughters, while he undergoes chemotherapy and intensive therapy coordinated by Port Moody Integrated Health that includes dietary changes, high doses of intravenous vitamin C injections as well as hypothermia, which uses high heat to kill stray cancer cells.
Most of the supplementary therapies aren’t covered by health insurance, said Armstrong on the GoFundMe page, and they can cost up to $10,000 a month.
As of midday Wednesday, Dec. 27, the campaign had amassed more than $47,000 along with several messages of support — some of them from fans of the teams where MacLeod’s playing career has taken him.
“We give support for you on the ice, now you again have to fight for yourself and it’s again time to support you,” said one.
“Wade’s a popular player wherever he goes,” said Armstrong.
MacLeod’s diagnosis is his third bout with glioblastoma after doctors removed a non-cancerous tumour the size of a golf ball from his brain in 2012 when he collapsed on the ice and went into convulsions 20 games into his second season with the Springfield Falcons of the American Hockey League.
MacLeod, who grew up in Coquitlam and lives in Port Moody, fought his way back into game shape and finished the season playing five games for the Evansville IceMen in the ECHL, a rung further down the professional hockey ladder.
The next fall, MacLeod was back in the AHL, earning a spot on the Toronto Marlies where he played 34 games and scored 15 points before returning to the ECHL with the Orlando Solar Bears.
Following another full season in the ECHL with the Idaho Steelheads, MacLeod headed to Europe, landing a contract to play for Starbulls Rosenheim in Germany’s second-tier Deutsche Eishockey Liga 2 (DEL2).
After a successful 2015-16 season in which he scored 61 points in 50 games and added another seven in eight playoff games, the left winger got sick again.
Doctors discovered the tumour in MacLeod’s brain was growing back and after surgery in September 2016, they determined it was cancerous.
Again, MacLeod battled to resume his career. In March, 2017, after three scans showed no regrowth of the tumour, he signed with the ECHL’s Allen Americans in Texas.
“I’m here now and I’m ready to play,” MacLeod told the team’s broadcaster in an interview.
He scored 13 points in 13 games for the Americans and the following September he headed back to the DEL2 to play for Loewen Frankfurt where he was able to continue his point-a-game scoring pace.
But as MacLeod, his wife and their first daughter were preparing to return to Germany where he’d signed with the Dresden Eislowen, he was felled by another seizure. Two more surgeries to remove a Grade 3 glioblastoma followed.
“It is what it is,” MacLeod told the Tri-City News in the midst of a six-month course of chemotherapy treatment.
Returning to Germany was supposed to the time of their lives, added Karly.
But again, MacLeod fought back.
By December 2018, he was skating in stick-and-puck games with his brother and brother-in-law at local arenas.
MacLeod said the casual sessions fuelled his resolve to resume playing pro.
“I said from the very beginning that cancer wasn’t going to be the reason I retire from professional hockey.”
In the fall of 2021, MacLeod made good on that pledge even though he'd been away from the game for three years.
After months of intensive training in the gym and at Planet Ice in Coquitlam, including workouts with veteran NHLer Brad Hunt, MacLeod secured a contract with the Manchester Storm in Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League.
The gig lasted just seven games, during which MacLeod scored one assist. He then headed to the far northern reaches of Norway where he played another seven games for the Narvik Arctic Eagles, his contract partially funded by the team’s supporters.
“There is a story here that is very special,” said the club’s leader, Kjell-Ivar Berg, on its website. “The story of Wade MacLeod is a story of never giving up the dream.”
But last June, MacLeod conceded his hockey career had come to an end at the age of 36. Four brain operations and three comebacks had taken a toll.
“I gave all my life to hockey and now it is time to turn the page,” he said on his Facebook page, adding his new passion would be helping other families navigate health challenges and the financial difficulties that can often accompany them.
“It is now my responsibility to make sure all of you and your families are protected.”
MacLeod said he remains undeterred to battle back yet again from this latest setback.
“I’ll beat it again, no doubt in my mind.”
