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 profession that involved stepping onto ice for intense physical activity.
“Everyone asks me, how did I feel about not playing hockey, was it devastating?” Hodgson said. “Well, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t diagnosed with the things they were testing me for. So I knew it was the end of my hockey career, but at least it wasn’t something that serious.
“So, yeah, obviously it sucked I wasn’t able to do what I loved and did since I was 2, but there’s more to life than hockey. That’s kind of the way I approached it.”
The Nashville Predators kept Hodgson in hockey
Hodgson was able to stay around the game in the years that followed. The Admirals’ parent club, the Nashville Predators, immediately offered him a job with their Learn to Play program, a community outreach effort. Hodgson and other alumni skating with children aged 4-9, teaching them about the game to cultivate players or lifelong fans.
Hodgson was working for an NHL organization and on the ice, albeit in a track suit. He was giving back, like the youth coaches and volunteers who helped him along the way.
Still, he missed the buzz of the dressing room, the camaraderie, the echoes of pucks slapping off the boards during practice at an empty arena.
“I didn’t touch my gear for five years,” said Hodgson, who started skating at age 2 and playing at 4.
Then one day he heard from J.P. Dumont, who played the last five of his 13 NHL seasons with Nashville and still lived in the area.
Skating in Nashville began Hodgson’s ‘journey back’
“He said, ‘Cody, we have a skate, it’s just alumni guys, it’s not like other leagues, like when you play men’s leagues other guys try to kill you because you played in the NHL and it’s really intense.’ He said, ‘We just go and have fun. If you can play, that’s great. If you can’t play and you get off the ice, no one cares. We’re just going to have fun.’
“I went out there. I was a little rusty, but it was awesome, just good for the soul to be around hockey players and play again and compete. Even though it wasn’t at the highest level, it was fun to get out there with those guys and be in the locker room. That was kind of the first part of the journey back.”
Hodgson subsequently moved back to Toronto, where he found a similar pickup that included Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Lindros and three-time NHL all-star Gary Roberts.
While Hodgson’s malignant hyperthermia was under control, the medicine that kept it that way also made him “loopy” and slowed his reactions and after years of dealing with that, he began to look for other options that could help. Hodgson took an interest in the power of cold, to the point he traveled to the Netherlands to learn from Wim Hof, who had earned acclaim for his feats of endurance and exposure to cold and literally wrote the book on breathing techniques to deal with such conditions.
Last summer, Hodgson said, as he learned techniques that kept his muscles from seizing up the way they did, his reactions became rarer and could be cleared up with doses of the drug that are less than one-tenth of what he used to take.
“When my body changed this summer I started looking for something a little more competitive,” Hodgson said.
“I just started pushing it day by day. I went back to the old doctors that diagnosed me and said, can you test me for all the stuff that was damaged before, my heart, liver, kidneys, everything that had issues? And it all came back clean. So I was like, OK, then I’m going to try to push it a little more. Let’s see what happens. It hasn’t been triggered since.
“It’s a genetic condition, so I don’t know if you ever beat it, but I feel like I have the tools now to manage it.”
Hodgson always hoped for another chance in hockey
He had always had it in the back of his mind he’d like to try to get back in the game if it were possible, but Hodgson became more serious in August at the urging of some of his retiree friends and longtime skills coach Brad Wheeler.
“I trust his opinion on hockey, so if it was him telling me it (to try) wasn’t just me thinking I was pretty good,” Hodgson said. “He said, yeah, lose about 50 pounds. If you every want to come back you have to take it seriously.”
Under the supervision of his original doctors and with regular blood tests to monitor for signs of muscle breakdown, Hodgson increased his workouts from one day a week to two, to four and five, built himself back into hockey shape and slimmed from 233 pounds to 190.
In a few short months, Hodgson went from looking for a more competitive recreational game to cold-calling American Hockey League general managers, hoping just to get a look.
One of the first he called was Scott Nichol, the Admirals GM and Predators assistant GM, who offered Hodgson that chance, signing him Jan. 17 to a professional tryout contract. The whole process, Hodgson said, took two days.
“I was ready to go,” he said. “I had to know I was ready, that I wasn’t messing around when I made those calls. Obviously I had my bags packed. If something happens, you’ve got to be ready to go.”
Admirals GM Scott Nichol gave Hodgson his opportunity
Nichol’s low-risk move – one that caught Admirals coach Karl Taylor off guard – has been rewarded with five goals in his first eight games for a team that was in the midst of a record 19-game winning streak when he arrived.
“Initially, I was like, holy moly … my jaw dropped,” Taylor said. “Like, eight years is a long time. He’s put his time in before he came here and we kind of inched him along through it and … he’s scoring at a higher rate than we expected.
“It was a little bit shocking. But I’m proud of him. A lot of respect for what he’s trying to do, that’s for sure.”
Hodgson’s comeback has not been entirely smooth. In the second period of his first game, he suffered a broken rib on his left side when a piece of plastic on his off-the-shelf, rec-league suspenders got jammed into his chest by a hard check. He tried to play the next game – “very old school by him to hang in there,” Taylor said – but then had to sit out again for nearly four weeks.
“It’s not an easy thing to attempt and put himself out there,” Taylor said. “It’s a great story. We’re excited to have him here, and we hope it works out well for him.”
Will the opportunity with the Admirals be the springboard for Hodgson to get back to the top level of hockey?
Taylor wouldn’t bet against him.
And Hodgson isn’t about to make any predictions on what the ultimate outcome may be. Instead he’ll stick to what he knows: The past few months have been an unbelievable ride, and he’ll do everything he can to reach that next goal.
“I thought coming in, training, I’d be a lot slower and really have to pick up my speed, but I feel good strength-wise and physically,” Hodgson said. “The biggest thing for me is the mental side. The game happens quick and there’s nothing that replicates that. You’ve got to play games, you’ve got to get in and feel comfortable. The more I play, the more I get comfortable.”