Originally appeared on democratandchronicle.com
When they were little kids, Alex and Sal Balbi learned that hockey players are special people.
Their younger brother, Nicky, was a baby when he was diagnosed with leukemia, which tragically took his life before he turned 3.
Parents Salvatore and Janet Balbi had sought treatment for their infant son at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo.
Every Tuesday, members of the Buffalo Sabres would visit Nicky and the other pediatric patients. The memories are a little fuzzy, said Alex, who is now 42 and lives in Batavia. At the time of his brother's diagnosis, he was around 2½ and Sal was 1½.
But, “I do remember our parents telling us what special people they were,” Alex said. “We wanted to be special, too. So, from when we were very young, we were in awe of hockey players.”
Cancer strikes again
That admiration led to their own participation in the sport while growing up in Hamlin, where their parents still live. Alex took a causal approach; Sal was more serious.
“Sal played hockey at a much more competitive level than I did,” Alex said.
He played youth hockey, including for the Junior Amerks, and he played while he was a student at Brockport High School. His hope was to play for a Division I college team and turn pro.
“His dream was to go to Boston College and play in the NHL,” Alex said.
But as a junior in high school, while in New York City playing Junior A hockey (which is a step below college hockey), he tore is ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, which helps stabilize the knee joint.
“So that didn’t happen,” Alex said.
Instead, Sal attended SUNY Brockport, where he played center on that school’s hockey team. He went on to become a master electrician and family man. The Hamlin resident continued to enjoy playing hockey with buddies. Until cancer struck again.
At first, Sal blamed ill-fitting work boots for pain in his left foot. Then he noticed a bump.
Initially, doctors thought the growth was a cyst. But after removing it in May 2017, they said, “‘That doesn’t look like a cyst. We’re sending it off for a biopsy,’” Alex recalled.
The pathology report was unexpected and devastating: synovial sarcoma, a rare malignancy that affects soft tissue and often is found in the extremities.
Sal, who as a small child donated bone marrow in an effort to save his brother Nicky’s life, was now facing his own life-threatening illness. He underwent chemotherapy, radiation and ultimately amputation of his left leg at Roswell.
Just before his diagnosis, one of Sal’s four children, also named Sal, was developing an interest in hockey. The elder Sal’s dream was to take the ice with his son. It was not to be. On Feb. 26, two weeks after turning 41, Sal died.
Now Alex and young Sal, who turned 14 in October, will host a hockey game in Sal’s honor.
'We’re hoping to help doctors find better cures'
The Sal Balbi Memorial Hockey Game is set for 1 p.m. Saturday, May 1, at Bill Gray’s Regional Iceplex in Brighton.
"For our family, the game is about remembering Sal and his love for the game and the love he passed to his son," said his widow, Erica, adding that young Sal, her stepson, "is just as passionate about the game as his dad was."
The event also aims to increase awareness of synovial sarcoma and raise money for research.
The doctors at Roswell “did what they could,” Alex said. “But it’s such a rare cancer. We’re hoping to help doctors find better cures, so other people can have better outcomes.”
Said Erica: "A lot of people have never heard of synovial sarcoma — we hadn’t. Sal's doctor once told us that donations are so limited in her area because people just don’t know. We hope the donations will help with more research and help other families just like ours."
The game will pit juniors — young Sal and a team of his peers — against seniors — friends who played hockey with the elder Sal.
“The response from Sal’s friends … was quite overwhelming,” Alex said. The younger players and their parents “were equally enthusiastic.”
And it's fitting because, in life, "Sal always tried to help everyone," Erica said, and he was "always a great leader in everything he did."
In advance of the game, young Sal — the only freshmen on the Brockport High School varsity hockey team — has been selling commemorative T-shirts and pucks, as well as collecting donations for Roswell in Sal’s name. The items also are for sale on a public Facebook page, which includes information on how to make donations.
Meanwhile, young Sal’s hockey coach, Tom Westcott, has been gathering stories from anyone who played with the elder Sal to create a book of memories.
The game itself will make more memories and reinforce an idea that Alex and his brother knew all along: “What givers hockey players are. They’re really something else.”