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Life still 'pretty good' for Brent

But Preds' Peterson says some days on the ice it's like 'walking in a straitjacket'

By Tony Gallagher, The Province January 26, 2011

There are some courageous people in the NHL but you'd have to go some to top former Vancouver Canuck centre and now Nashville assistant coach Brent Peterson.

As many know he's still coaching in this league eight years on after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a mean piece of business for which there is no cure and not a whole lot to look forward to save a lot of heartache and torture for both the afflicted and his or her family members.

For Peterson's part, he would just as soon talk about hockey, how the Preds are having another great year behind defencemen Shea Weber, Ryan Suter and Kevin Klein who are stalwarts in front of the goaltending provided largely by Pekka Rinne.

When you try to give him some credit he quickly says, "Barry [head coach Trotz] is the guy," and then goes on to say his team almost beat Chicago last year in the first round and Detroit the year before that and that they are genuinely due to win a first-round matchup one of these years.

They didn't keep faceoff stats in his time, but he never lost a crucial draw in the defensive zone as a Canuck and he is almost certainly one of the all-time best at that part of the game. No Predator can take a draw unless they beat him four out of seven in practice, but now that the disease is taking its toll, more and more guys are beating him and that part really sucks for him.

As far as the rest goes, well, nobody tells it better than Brent himself.

"I'm still getting on the ice every day and enjoying keeping busy, but I'll be brutally honest, this is a progressive disease and it's progressing," says Peterson who, true to form, wants to be sure he doesn't stay on too long so as to do anything to hurt the team's chances. "Some days are real good, some days aren't so good and yes, there are more bad days than there were, but life is still pretty good. I do have some days where I get the freezing (your body freezes up making movement extremely difficult) and it's mostly on my right side, but I'm still going about my business getting my job done and it's been a real blessing.

"On those bad days I can still walk, but it's like you're in a straitjacket. Most days I'm just too busy to think about the future, and that's real good because I'm doing pretty well for a guy eight years on.

"I have friends who were diagnosed two, three years ago and they're in wheelchairs already, so I've been very lucky. And I really don't know where this is going. I don't really have a plan, all I know is that this is the last year on my contract and I want to make sure I don't stay on too long and hurt the team. I'd never do that.

"The bummer in all this is that it's robbed me of a chance of ever being a head coach, which was my goal and now it's taking away my work here. But I don't have time to think about it and brood, and that's the best part. It's what's kept me going. I think if I did, that is what gets people. Today is a good day because we've played back to back and today is a day off so I'm feeling good. I'm managing to get my sleep. I sleep a couple of hours here and there, and then I'll make up for it with a nap during the day. I get what I need most days.

"The thing about it is that it's not like cancer. With that disease, either you get better or you get worse and pass away, but with this, it doesn't kill you, it just eats away at you, makes life difficult, as everything you run into is an obstacle.

"I mean, it takes me an hour to shave in the morning and sometimes 45 minutes to get dressed for a game. My son designed a new way to do a top button because it was taking me forever to do that on my shirt because of the shaking. My hands, they just don't work.

"And of course it's tough on my wife, it's always so tough on the caregivers because of course they go through a lot of pain, but she's been great. She's such a beautiful, vivacious person and my kids, you can imagine but they've been great. My son Ryan is a doctor, Bradley works for us [the Preds] so he's right there with us and Kristin is 22 now. She just got married, so we're pretty happy about that.

"We've had great success with our Foundation, though. In three years we've raised over $100,000 for Parkinson's research with a run and a golf tournament. The website is PetersonforParkinsons.org and we give some of the money to the Michael J. Fox foundation and most to my doctor who heads up the Vanderbilt Parkinson's Research centre. Brian Grant [a retired NBA forward diagnosed two years ago with Parkinson's] came last year and we're trying to get Michael Fox this year. But all the guys come and we have a great day."

Those who know the disease know where it goes from here for everyone involved. Those who don't should be giving thanks to God for their good fortune. But go where it may, you'll be hard pressed to get Brent Peterson on a down day.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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