Canucks Assistant Equipment Manager Saved by Kraken Fan's Message About Cancerous Mole

Phil · January 2, 2022

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The Vancouver Canucks assistant equipment manager was in Seattle on Oct. 23 for the Kraken's first home game when he noticed a fan banging on the glass to get his attention. It's a common occurrence, and one Hamilton -- now nearly two decades in with the Canucks -- might have just ignored.

But the woman was persistent, and as Hamilton was shuffling supplies and leaving the bench, he saw the woman's phone with a message written in large, colorful font:

"The mole on the back of your neck is cancer."

Turns out, she was right. Hamilton had the mole biopsied and found it was a malignant melanoma in phase 2, meaning the cancer was only on the outer layer of his skin and hadn't yet penetrated to the inner layer. That discovery was all due to early detection by the woman now identified as Nadia Popovici, whom Hamilton will forever call his hero.

"She extended my life, she saved my life," Hamilton said Saturday. "She didn't take me out of a burning car like [in] the big stories, but she took me out of a slow fire. The words out of the doctor's mouth were if I ignored that for four to five years, I wouldn't be here. I didn't [even] know [the mole] was there. She pointed it out. How she saw it boggles my mind. It wasn't very big. I wear a jacket [on the bench], I wear a radio on the back of my jacket that hooks on, so the cords are there. Like, she's a hero."

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/32974562/canucks-assistant-equipment-manager-brian-red-hamilton-finds-woman-saved-life-message-cancerous-mole

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Amazing story.

Pete · January 2, 2022

What an incredible story.

Similar to that dude Tarek from Flip or Flop on HGTV (could be a different show)... a fan noticed a lump in his neck and wrote into the show and it turned out to be cancer.

Crazy and awesome.