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Battling lung cancer, Canadiens great Guy Lafleur strives to raise awareness – CBC.ca

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Guy Lafleur is never sure what’s around the next corner.

When his cancer treatments aren’t quite as draining, the Montreal Canadiens great has energy.

And then there are other times when all he wants to do is rest.

“I get the immunotherapy the first three weeks, and then the fourth week I have the big chemo,” Lafleur said of his regimen in a recent interview with The Canadian Press. “It’s the chemotherapy that really hurts you badly. There’s not a week that’s the same. The last two weeks, I was feeling very, very bad and sleeping a lot.

“But the last three days I feel a lot better — a lot of ups and downs.”

A cancerous white spot was discovered on Lafleur’s right lung by chance in September 2019 when he was undergoing quadruple bypass heart surgery. Two months later, the Hockey Hall of Fame winger went under the knife again to remove both the upper lobe of his lung and lymph nodes.

“I had no idea,” Lafleur said of his cancer, thankful it was caught early. “I maybe would have ended up with Stage 4 and maybe it would have been too late.”

But he received bad news in October 2020 that the cancer was back, which is when Lafleur began his current treatment.

“There’s not too many people that have a chance to grab it from the beginning,” said the 70-year-old Lafleur, who has partnered with Merck Canada for its new “Be The MVP” campaign to raise awareness about early lung cancer detection.

‘There’s miracles out there’

The Canadian Cancer Society estimates 21,000 people will die of lung cancer in this country in 2021, some 25 per cent of all cancer deaths.

“Most people when they find out, it’s Stage 4,” added Lafleur, a chain smoker until quitting cold turkey due to his health concerns in 2019. “It’s not too late, because there’s miracles out there, and there’s people that are surviving.

“But it’s better to find out yourself.”

Lafleur, who won five Stanley Cups as part of the Canadiens’ dynasty of the 1970s during a sparkling career, continues to watch his old team with a keen eye.

If you don’t have the right players, you’re not going to win.— Guy Lafleur on the Canadiens’ struggles without key veterans Shea Weber and Carey Price

The man nicknamed “The Flower” doesn’t attend many games — although Lafleur did get a thunderous ovation at the Bell Centre during last season’s improbable run to the final — but has been disappointed by a start that’s seen Montreal win just five times in 20 outings to sit 29th in the NHL standings.

“They went for the Stanley Cup and now are almost last place,” said Lafleur, who registered 560 goals and 1,353 points in 1,126 regular-season games with the Canadiens, New York Rangers and Quebec Nordiques.

“If you’re not ready and if you don’t have the right players, you’re not going to win.”

Montreal has, of course, been minus two big pieces in 2021-22. Canadiens captain Shea Weber is dealing with injuries that could force his retirement, while goaltender Carey Price entered a residential treatment facility for “substance use” prior to the season and continues to work his way back.

“That’s two big guys missing,” Lafleur said. “But it’s not normal to have losing streaks like that. Even if you’re missing two guys you should be able to compensate.”

While critical of the team’s on-ice performance, Lafleur has plenty of admiration for Price and winger Jonathan Drouin, who left the team last spring to deal with insomnia and anxiety, for addressing their mental health needs — and then sharing details publicly.

“They were hiding it for a while, their problems, but it came out and it’s going to help,” Lafleur said. “First of all, themselves. And also, people will understand what they go through. It’s a good thing.

Gallagher for captain?

“They’re not the only two in the league, I’ll tell you that.”

Lafleur believes the Canadiens need to name a captain, with Weber on the shelf indefinitely. Gritty forward Brendan Gallagher is his choice.

“Right now,” he said emphatically. “Sorry for Shea, but he’s not playing. You need somebody that players look up to.

“And Brendan … he’s the guy that shows up for every game, he pays the price every game.”

Meanwhile, the game’s declining interest among Quebec’s youth has pushed the provincial government to unveil a strategy aimed at increasing the number of Quebecers in the NHL.

Lafleur isn’t part of the committee announced last week, but he has a few ideas.

“Times change,” he said. “Minor hockey, it’s so expensive. For parents to bring their kids up to the junior [level], it’s unbelievable. In our day, we didn’t have that.

“It was not that much money because we didn’t travel much. Minor hockey, it’s organized like the NHL now.”

Lafleur also pointed the finger at some parents.

‘Too much pressure’ on hockey’s youth

“They put so much pressure on the kids,” he said. “They think about winning the lottery if they make [the NHL].

“That’s why a lot of kids are quitting … there’s too much pressure. They have to perform all the time.”

Pressure to perform, however, comes with the territory for a storied franchise with 24 Cup banners.

“You have to go to war together,” Lafleur said of the current Canadiens. “Not one guy one night, two guys the next night. It’s 20 guys on the team, and you go out there and you do everything in your power to win.

“Montreal is the best city in the world to play in, if you win. If you don’t win, it’s hell.”

Lafleur has lived in his own form of that the last 26 months with his surgeries, the COVID-19 pandemic, the cancer’s return, and treatments that can take a heavy toll.

But the support of family, friends and fans — the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League retired his number last month — has been immeasurable.

“I’ve been mostly stuck in the house since 2019,” he said. “Mentally, it’s tough. Hopefully I get through this and get out of it with a victory.

“It’s the hope for everybody that has cancer.”

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After 20 years at the top of chess, Magnus Carlsen is making his next move

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STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Few chess players enjoy Magnus Carlsen‘s celebrity status.

A grand master at 13, refusing to play an American dogged by allegations of cheating, and venturing into the world of online chess gaming all made Norway’s Carlsen a household name.

Few chess players have produced the magical commodity that separates Norway’s Magnus Carlsen from any of his peers: celebrity.

Only legends like Russia’s Garry Kasparov and American Bobby Fischer can match his name recognition and Carlsen is arguably an even more dominant player. Last month, he beat both men to be named the International Chess Federation’s greatest ever.

But his motivation to rack up professional titles is on the wane. Carlsen, 33, now wants to leverage his fame to help turn the game he loves into a spectator sport.

“I am in a different stage in my career,” he told The Associated Press. “I am not as ambitious when it comes to professional chess. I still want to play, but I don’t necessarily have that hunger. I play for the love of the game.”

Offering a new way to interact with the game, Carlsen on Friday launched his application, Take Take Take, which will follow live games and players, explaining matches in an accessible way that, Carlsen says, is sometimes missing from streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch. “It will be a chiller vibe,” he says.

Carlsen intends to use his experience to provide recaps and analysis on his new app, starting with November’s World Chess Championship tournament between China’s Ding Liren and India’s Gukesh Dommaraju. He won’t be competing himself because he voluntarily ceded the title in 2023.

Carlsen is no novice when it comes to chess apps. The Play Magnus game, which he started in 2014, gave online users the chance to play against a chess engine modeled against his own gameplay. The company ballooned into a suite of applications and was bought for around $80 million in 2022 by Chess.com, the world’s largest chess website.

Carlsen and Mats Andre Kristiansen, the chief executive of his company, Fantasy Chess, are betting that a chess game where users can follow individual players and pieces, filters for explaining different elements of each game, and light touch analysis will scoop up causal viewers put off by chess’s sometimes rarefied air. The free app was launched in a bid to build the user base ahead of trying to monetizing it. “That will come later, maybe with advertisements or deeper analysis,” says Kristiansen.

While Take Take Take offers a different prospect with its streaming services, it is still being launched into a crowded market with Chess.com, which has more than 100 million users, YouTube, Twitch, and the website of FIDE the International Chess Federation. World Chess was worth around $54 million when it got listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The accessibility of chess engines that can beat any human means cheating has never been easier. However, they can still be used to shortcut thousands of hours of book-bound research, and hone skills that would be impossible against human opponents.

“I think the games today are of higher quality because preparation is becoming deeper and deeper and artificial intelligence is helping us play. It is reshaping the way we evaluate the games,” especially for the new generation of players, says Carlsen.

At the same time, he admits that two decades after becoming a grand master, his mind doesn’t quite compute at the tornado speed it once did. “Most people have less energy when they get older. The brain gets slower. I have already felt that for a few years. The younger players’ processing power is just faster.”

Even so, he intends to be the world’s best for many years to come.

“My mind is a bit slower, and I maybe don’t have as much energy. But chess is about the coming together of energy, computing power and experience. I am still closer to my peak than decline,” he said.

Chess has been cresting a popularity wave begun by Carlsen himself.

He became the world’s top-ranked player in 2011. In 2013, he won the first of his five World Championships. In 2014, he achieved the highest-ever chess rating of 2882, and he has remained the undisputed world number one for the last 13 years.

Off the table, chess influencers, like the world No. 2, Hikaru Nakamura, are using social media to bring the game to a wider audience. The Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” burnished chess’ unlikely cerebral sex appeal when it became one of the streamer’s biggest hits in 2020.

And in 2022 Carlsen’s refusal to play against Hans Niemann, an American grand master, who admitted to using technology to cheat in online games in the past, created a rare edge in the usually sedate world of chess. There is no evidence Niemann ever cheated in live games but the feud between the pair propelled the game even further into public consciousness.

Whether chess can continue to grow without the full professional participation of its biggest celebrity remains to be seen.

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Top figure skaters ready to hit the ice at Skate Canada International

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Canadian pairs team Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps along with ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier headline a strong field at Skate Canada International. The Canadians say they’re excited to perform in front of a home crowd as the world’s best figure skaters arrive in Halifax. (Oct. 24, 2024)

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Nico Echavarria shoots another 64 to lead the Zozo Championship by 2 shots after the second round

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INZAI CITY, Japan (AP) — Nico Echavarria shot a 6-under 64 on Friday — matching his 64 on Thursday — to lead by two shots over Taylor Moore and Justin Thomas after the second round of the Zozo Championship in Japan.

Thomas shot 64 and Moore carded 67 with three others just three shots off the lead including Seamus Power, who had the day’s low round of 62 at the Narashino Country Club.

Thomas has twice won the PGA Championship but is winless in two years on the PGA Tour.

Eric Cole (67) and C.T. Pan (66) were also three behind heading to Saturday.

Nick Taylor, of Abbotsford, B.C., is the top Canadian at 5-under and tied for 16th.

Ben Silverman, of Thornhill, Ont., is two shots back of Taylor and tied for 31st.

“I’ve never had a lead after 36 holes,” said Echavarria, a Colombian who played at the University of Arkansas. His lone PGA win was last year in Puerto Rico.

He had a two-round total of 12-under 128.

“I’ve had it after 54, but never after 36, so it’s good to be in this position. There’s got to be some pressure,” he added. “Hopefully a good round tomorrow can keep me in the lead or around the lead. And how I said yesterday — the goal is to be close with nine holes to go.”

Rickie Fowler, a crowd favorite in Japan because of his connections to the country, shot 64 to go with an opening 68 and was four shots back going into the weekend. Max Greyserman was also four behind after a 68.

“It would be amazing to win here,” said Fowler, whose mother has Japanese roots. “Came close a few years ago.”

Fowler tied for second in 2022

Fowler described his roots as “pretty far removed for Japan, but I’m sure I have relatives here, but I don’t know anyone. Japanese culture’s always been a fairly big part of life growing up. I always love being over here.”

Japanese star Hideki Matsuyama shot his second 71 and was 14 shots off the lead.

Defending champion Collin Morikawa shot 67 and pulled within eight shot of the lead, and Xander Schauffele — British Open and PGA winner this season — shot 65 and was 10 behind after a 73 on Thursday.

“I feel like I’ve got a good game plan out here,” Morikawa said, another player with Japanese connections. “I just have to execute shots a little better.”

“I am the defending champ, but that doesn’t mean I’m immediately going to play better just because I won here,” he added. “It’s a brand new week, it’s a year later. I feel like my golf game is still in a good spot. I just haven’t executed my shots. When that doesn’t happen it makes golf a little tougher.”

Schauffele turned 31 on Friday and said he was serenaded before his opening tee shot. He also has ties to Japan. His mother grew up in Japan and his grandparents live in the Tokyo area.

“Nice way to spend my 31st birthday,” he said.

___

AP golf:

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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