THE INSTIGATOR

MUMPS IS THE WORD

WHEN THE MUMPS VIRUS hit the Anaheim Ducks in November, the dressing room went into lockdown. Infected players were isolated for a week. Healthy players were vaccinated. Every player got his own towel, water bottle and, of course, a warning: cover your mouth when you cough. But the virus still infected Corey Perry, Francois Beauchemin and Clayton Stoner before spreading to other teams. The Ducks don’t think they had it first, but they were the team that put others on alert. Mumps lasts between seven and 10 days and typically causes fever, headaches, muscle aches, fatigue and loss of appetite. It also has a 40 percent chance of making a patient’s saliva glands swell, which explains why some NHLers look like they’ve hidden pucks in their cheeks. In rare cases, the virus…

MAN WITH A NEW MISSION

CLINT MALARCHUK WAS AT A BOOK SIGNING IN EDMONTON this fall, promoting his biography The Crazy Game, when an older child approached him and thanked him. “He said, ‘You saved my life. I was gonna do it.’” The “it” was suicide. The boy had done his research and made preparations to take his own life when his father found out and intervened. The dad pushed his son to read up on Malarchuk and the powerful message the former NHL goalie has been sharing with anyone who will listen. Put simply, mental illness is not a weakness, it’s an illness. “It’s no different than having diabetes,” Malarchuk said. “That’s a chemical imbalance. Mental illness is usually a chemical imbalance of the brain, the serotonin levels.” Malarchuk, 53, isn’t the first to spread these…

THE FIGHT TO SELL WOMEN’S HOCKEY

PEOPLE CLOSE TO Julie Chu consider her superhuman. But you’d have to forgive her if you spotted bags under her eyes in winter 2013. It was a non-Olympic year, so Chu, one of Team USA’s most decorated forwards ever, worked as an assistant coach with Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., as a day job. She gave instruction wearing full equipment so she could squeeze daily workouts in simultaneously. She stayed with the team from Monday to Saturday, including game nights, which were typically Friday and Saturday. Her rest and recreation after a game consisted of hopping in her car and driving to Montreal (215 miles), Toronto (367 miles) or Boston (186 miles), depending on where her Canadian Women’s League team competed that weekend. She’d arrive to join it late –…