It’s almost unbelievable how the goals keeps changing.
These days, 34-year-old Cody Hodgson has his sights set on getting back to the NHL.
But only two months ago, he was just hoping to get another chance to play professional hockey.
Not long before that, Hodgson was just hoping he could hold up just skating with some ex-pros who’d retired a generation before him.
And eight years ago, he just wanted to stay alive.
“Every player who plays hockey or competitive sports, they want to compete against the best and see how good they can be,” said Hodgson, whose comeback with the Milwaukee Admirals – and immediate contribution – has become one of the best feel-good stories in the game this season.
“That’s the goal. But it sounds crazy in relation to where I was six weeks ago.”
In relation to 2014, it seems impossible.
Hodgson’s career has restarted exactly where it seemed to have ended. A first-round draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks, the center from Toronto played 328 games in the NHL, but by the 2015-16 season, his body was breaking down and with it his career. In a season beset by injuries, Hodgson spent his final 14 games that season with the Admirals before retiring.
He was miserable, a 180-degree difference from being in Milwaukee today.
Cody Hodgson suffered muscle tears, heart arrythmia and blackouts
“I had tears in my neck, shoulders, back, everywhere,” Hodgson said after a recent practice at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. “(Muscles) were just ripping for what I thought was no reason, but it makes sense now. When your muscles seize up and there’s no way to give, they just tear.
“And heart arrythmias and lungs were shutting down so it was tough to breathe, trying to get air. So that was pretty scary. Went to the hospital a few times for that. I was urinating blood. Blacking out all the time. Scary stuff. I knew something was going on.”
Doctors too. It just took some heavy-duty testing and time to figure out what.
Malignant hyperthermia, a genetic disorder runs in Hodgson’s family
After probing Hodgson for brain, lung and liver cancer, among other possible sources, they figured out he was suffering from malignant hyperthermia, a genetic condition that usually surfaces an extreme allergic reaction to anesthesia.
In Hodgson’s case, he said, the biggest trigger for symptoms was the transition from hot to cold or cold to hot. He actually was aware of others in his extended family afflicted by the condition, but none of them were in a…
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