Yanick Dupre
------------------- Regular Season ------------------ --------------------- Playoffs -------------------
Season Team League GP G A TP PIM +/- PP SH GW GT Shots Pct GP G A TP PIM +/- PP SH GW OT Shots Pct
1989-90 DRUM QMJHL 30 10 10 20 27 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1989-90 CHIC QMJHL 24 5 9 14 27 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1990-91 DRUM QMJHL 58 29 38 67 87 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 11 8 5 13 33 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1991-92 PHIL NHL 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1991-92 DRUM QMJHL 28 19 17 36 48 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1991-92 VERD QMJHL 12 7 14 21 21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 19 9 18 27 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1992-93 HERS 63 13 24 37 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1993-94 HERS AHL 51 22 20 42 42 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 8 1 3 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1994-95 PHIL NHL 22 0 0 0 8 -7 0 0 0 0 21 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
1994-95 HERS AHL 41 15 19 34 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
NHL TOT NHL 23 0 0 0 8 -7 0 0 0 0 21 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
When Yanick Dupre awoke from the three-week coma that nearly killed himin the spring of 1996, he could not move any part of his body. He had
lost 46 pounds while he slept. He had always taken pride in his
strangth and condiditoning, and now he had the body of a rag doll.
But his mind was fine- as strong and quick as ever. That made it more
frustrating. His brain could not get his foot to wiggle a toe, or
persuade his tongue to form the words, "I'm thirsty." For two or
three days he almost gave up, thinking he'd never get better.
Then one day he wiggled a toe, and the fight came back to him. He
knew he was going to beat the leukenia that had invaded his body.
The next day he roared in frustration at the nurse who could not
understand what he wanted.
"That's when I knew he was back, that he was going to be OK." his
mother said last summer of the comfort it had given her to hear her
son snarl again Dupre, 24, robbed the angel of death last summer.
But he could not do it twice. He died Sunday after lapsing into another coma.
Dupre was a bulldog. He was quick to bight your head off, but only if he
considered you a friend.
"Now I know," I told him when I left his house in suburban Montreal last summer,
"that when you snap at me it's because you like me."
He laughed. He had a smile that could melt a mound of snow. "That's right," he
said.
Doctors told him last fall that there were no traces of leaukemia left in his
body. He began working out again. Slowly he packed on the pounds and regained
his sculptured look.
The last time I saw him was in March. He blew into town to visit his teammates.
His hair had grown back, and he talked about getting ready to play hockey again.
"I feel great," he said. "I was lucky. I can't wait to start playing again."
His brush with death had changed him. He was not so quick tempered, and he was
commited to educating the public about bone marrow transplants. When he visited
in March, he was gathering autographed sticks and jerseys to raise money for a
leukemia foundation.
Two months later, Dupre went in for a routine examination. The cancer had
returned.
This time, it was a more acute form of leukemia. Chemotherapy wouldn't be enough.
Dupre needed a bone marrow transplant. He got it in June.
"I talked to him right after the transplant," said Mark Piazza, the former Flyers public
relations director who now works for the Rangers. "When I was talking to him he had to put
the phone down to throw up because he was sick. But he said he was going to beat it. He
said he had beaten it once and he would beat it again."
One lesson that Dupre learned during his recovery last summer was the power that positive
thinking has in the healing process. He was a great believer in that.
Plus he was a hockey player. He had that hockey mentality, that toughness that allows you
to get 30 stitches in the face, lace up your skates, take a breath, and get back out on the
ice. He used his hockey mentality to fight the disease, that is what saved him last
summer.
When he awoke from the coma, the doctor told him he should be dead. "It's like you body has
just run a marathon every day for the last three weeks," the doctor told him. "and somehow
you survived."
Everyone who knew Dupre thought he would survive this time. Everyone who had ever felt his
sting or heard his bark, believed that he would beat the disease again and be back wearing
a Flyers jersey.
"He sounded so upbeat the last time I talked to him," Piazza said. "If anyone was tough
enough to beat this it was him. But that disease went through him like a buzz saw and took
the best part of is life away.
What I will always remember about Yanick Dupre is not the sadness in his death at too early
of an age, but how he fought to live when most of us would have given up.
He robbed the angel of death and used his extra time here to teach others about a killer
disease and to raise money and public awareness. He spent much of his time fighting the
disease even after it had disappeared from his bidy. And he did so others might live.
Now it is the rest of us who have been robbed, robbed of a man who was truly fit for life
------------ Taken From the Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 1997 -----------------
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