Eddie Olczyk played 16 seasons in the NHL for multiple franchises, and now serves as an analyst for NHL on NBC and for the Chicago Blackhawks, his hometown team for which he played five seasons.

Olczyk was diagnosed with colon cancer last year, and made a return to the booth in October to a standing ovation in St. Louis:

Olczyk this week spoke about his fight against the disease, and why he’s been so open about a matter he admits he’d normally keep as private as possible.

Via Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Tribune:

Blackhawks announcer Eddie Olczyk was audibly moved during a WSCR-AM 670 interview Thursday upon learning his candor and public battle with colon cancer led to early cancer detection and treatment for the father of a radio listener.

“I’m thankful and I appreciate that text,” Olczyk said as he regained his composure during “The Spiegel and Parkins Show” after the listener’s note was read. “That is truly my inspiration and my goal. I know that I’m reaching out to people I don’t know. The only reason I want to share my story is to help people.”

Earlier, Olczyk told co-hosts Matt Spiegel and Danny Parkins he was trying “to inspire one person to stay away from it or beat it themselves and hopefully it can be a domino effect down the road.”

Olczyk also noted he has less than a month remaining on his chemotherapy treatments:

In addition to regular sports talk radio fare — Olczyk thinks the Eagles and the over are good bets in the Super Bowl — he said he has only two sessions remaining in his 12-treatment chemotherapy regimen.

“I’ve got 27 days to go till I’m unhooked, hopefully for the last time, and put this in my rearview mirror,” Olczyk said, noting he plans to “just keep grinding away and hopefully continue to spread the word inspire people make sure people are taking care of themselves. It’s been a battle. It’s hard to believe I’m down to the last four weeks. The last couple of months have been a grind.

“I’m just looking forward to … getting back to what I love to do and that’s doing hockey games and doing some horse racing and get back to some sort of normalcy and hopefully put this cancer behind me.”

Hopefully, Olczyk’s future is cancer-free; unselfishly for the obvious sake of his health, and selfishly so we can have Doc Emrick and Eddie O back together down the stretch for the NHL season.

[Chicago Tribune]

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.