Saints hampered by common illness

"There's meatballs on the table for you guys," head coach Joe Marsh said after his St. Lawrence University men's hockey team earned a 6-1 win over Sacred Heart last Friday. "Oh, wait, wait. Make sure you sanitize first."

Since when do those tough hockey players with their ever-changing facial hair designs, smelly pads and torn sweaters care so much about rubbing down with Purell?

"I passed out in the bathroom in the middle of the night because I was dehydrated," goalie Alex Petizian said.

"I was coughing up blood at one point," Bobby Torney said.

"It felt like I had been beaten with a baseball bat," Sean Coffey said. "I had chills, was sweating and lost 15 pounds."

Since the H1N1 virus — commonly known as swine flu — struck the St. Lawrence campus this fall, the Saints have made a point to keep clean.

Between Oct. 27 and Nov. 3, St. Lawrence reported 136 cases of influenza-like illness among students and hundreds more students frequented the school's health center, according to the SLU Web site.

Petizian, Torney and Coffey all had unconfirmed cases of the influenza strain.

Petizian already had the traditional flu shot before coming down with flu-like symptoms and being rushed the emergency room.

And even when he got there, his pain wasn't relieved.

"It took them three tries to get the IV in me," Petizian said. "They missed the vein three times. The guy was a rookie."

Meanwhile, Coffey was holed up in his dorm room, suffering from multiple illnesses.

"I felt like a caged animal," he said. "Mine was bad because I had bronchitis early in the month, so my lungs were already in tough shape."

He spent a week in isolation as dining services delivered food to his door. Coffey didn't even have a television to pass the time.

"I just got one in case that happens again," he said. "I watched almost every single episode of 'House' online. It's a good show."

Coffey hasn't played in a game yet, and won't until next weekend at the earliest. He's the only one who hasn't made a full recovery.

"Every part of my body hurt," he said. "I'm still trying to recover from the effect it had on my lungs."

Marsh said the combination of illness with the team's injury problems has him feeling like it's late in the season, not just starting ECAC Hockey League play.

"It's a little more concentrated on sickness and injury than what I've seen before," he said. "It almost seems like it's February. Hopefully we can get this kind of out of our system."

To do that, St. Lawrence players are hitting the button on the hand santizers located throughout the building, including right inside the locker room door.

"We've kept it away from the team pretty well," Torney said. "As soon as guys even feel sick, they're sending them home. We're losing numbers, and it's hard to get a flow going. I think with how much there is in the school right now, we've kept it away from the rink, though."

CHILD PUSHES FOR MORE TIME

St. Lawrence defensemen Peter Child was the anonymous freshman at the end of the bench last season.

He was behind four senior defensemen and two juniors who saw plenty of ice time. Child didn't have a scholarship, didn't know if or when he would even play and was battling injuries all for the sport he loves.

"There were definitely a few low points," Child said. "The only opportunities to get in was when someone got hurt, and you don't want to see that happen. When I saw that everybody was healthy, I pretty much knew I wasn't going to be in the lineup."

He never once thought about giving up.

"Hockey's been my life since I was born," he said. "I definitely got down a little bit, but I wanted to be here and I wanted to keep playing hockey."

He spent the offseason using the University of Vermont facilities to train and get in hockey shape. Marsh took notice.

"I think he really bought into the conditioning thing over the summer," Marsh said. "He's the type of kid that can get better. He has a sense of what's needed to win."

Child had been racking up assists through the Saints' first four games, but still didn't get the goal.

Then, against Sacred Heart last week, he did something no SLU defenseman had accomplished in half a century. He recorded a hat trick.

"It was pretty awesome," he said. "I saw that stat and thought it was pretty funny, pretty cool."

The three scores were also the first of Child's career. St. Lawrence and NCAA statistics do not indicate if a player has ever scored his first goal on the same night he had a hat trick.

"I was just screaming," he said of the night. "I was so excited, I lost all the oxygen in my head. I was trying to skate by the bench and everyone was giving me high-fives and grabbing me. I almost fell down a couple of times. It was awesome."

But he said it's not about one game, no matter how rare, that makes all his work and all his sacrifice worth it.

"It's not one hat trick in 55 years that keeps me going," he said. "It's the team winning."

Sportswriter Daniel J. Cassavaugh covers St. Lawrence University men's hockey for the Times. For more coverage visit the "Casstle of the Saints" blog online at www.watertowndailytimes.com. You may reach him at dcassavaugh@wdt.net.