"I am feeling really good right now," Gophers coach Don Lucia said on Wednesday at the State Fair. "I am off all medications. I went in July to the Mayo Clinic [in Rochester, Minn.] and had some scans and everything looks great."
Lucia started suffered from an illness called sarcoidosis in late December of 2008. It is an inflammation which put pressure on a nerve on the left side of his face. It caused numbness, fatigued him and often made it hard for him to sleep.
Lucia missed four games in early January of 2009, the Dodge Holiday Classic a road trip to North Dakota. He also missed two weeks of on-ice practice and then occasional practices after that for treatment.
Four days of steroids in late January of 2009, were followed by weekly treatments on Mondays, then monthly treatments until his last visit to Mayo in July.
"I will go back in December just to make sure things are fine and then I will be good to go from there on," Lucia said. "Just nice to have that behind me.
"The guys were great. They were understanding. It was a long 18-20 month process, but I am back to working out and running. So I feel i have more energy today than I have had for the last couple of years, which is great."
MY BAD
When I wrote a blog item a few days ago about goalie Alex Kangas, I quoted him as saying the Gophers only lost two defensemen. That was an accurate quote, but then I put these names in -- David Fischer and Brian Schack -- because Kangas didn't name them. Those were the two senior D-men who graduated.
