In 1994, Jim Koleff fell ill with cancer as an EVZ trainer

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It was November 1994. A text that begins with such words digs deep into the past. And it will contain – that much you can assume – a lot of sentimental stuff, maybe also a few dusty anecdotes and events that others might remember differently.

But what do you want? It’s been a while too. So it was November 1994. I was at a national team meeting in Friborg (I think we played a tournament there, but I can’t remember for sure, maybe it was just a few games) standing in the free time between training and dinner with my colleague Theo Wittman at our hotel in front of a Snapspot slot machine. I remember because just then a team leader showed up and told me that our president at EV Zug, Fredy Egli, was looking for me.

Fredy Egli then told me on the phone that Jim Koleff, our trainer at EVZ, had relapsed and gone to New York to be treated for acute cancer.

The situation was serious. The remaining days with the national team are just a veil of fragments, I only remember that the coach’s name was Hardy Nilsson. I was much more concerned with the other coach, Jim Koleff. He had been diagnosed with cancer two years earlier, but recovered surprisingly quickly. This time it was different, a tumor in the abdominal cavity, 18 centimeters in diameter, put the Canadian in mortal danger.

Health updates by fax

The internet was not yet a source of information at that time, we players were kept informed by fax about the condition of our coach. These A4 sheets were pinned to the bulletin board in the cloakroom and were up-to-date until the next message came in.

For us players it was a disruptive event, everyday life was completely turned inside out, everything was different. Sean Simpson, Koleff’s assistant, took the lead. Journalists wanted to know how we deal with it. Opponents inquired sympathetically, but we were in no mood for pity or sympathy: we became aggressive (or so I felt). It’s hard to explain, but the situation allowed us to push boundaries, it was chaos and we knew how to handle it.

VHS tapes by airmail

We suddenly won in a row (EVZ was not yet a top club at the time) and were at the top. We found out with some delay how bad it was for Koleff. We didn’t know of a night that he wouldn’t survive until long after he survived.

At one point, a television with a built-in VCR was pushed into the cloakroom and a VHS cassette shipped from New York to Switzerland was played: Koleff was on the mend. He returned to Switzerland in early March 1995, in time for the start of the semi-final against Gottéron. Of course we won that series because – and now we’re back to the present – Gottéron always loses the last game in the playoffs.

Jim Koleff died in early November 2008 at the age of 55. The Canadian had no answer to the disease’s third comeback. In one of his last interviews in December 2007, he told the Sunday newspaper: “I’m living with cancer. I had no symptoms for nine years, then the cancer came back. It’s a state of constant control.”

Source : Blick