Comeback Kids

How Jack Weiss and Will Francis battled against cancer with the support of their hockey communities

By: Brian Halverson

JACK’S STORY

IMAGINE BEING 23 YEARS OLD and living 3,000 miles away from home in central Alaska. Now imagine sitting alone in a doctor’s office, with your parents only available to you via speaker phone, while you receive the devastating news that you have cancer.

Welcome to the world of Jack Weiss.

In November of 2017, less than two months into his junior season at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and just weeks after scoring his first collegiate goal, Weiss was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Three years later, the former Bloomington Jefferson Jaguar standout (2009-13) still finds it difficult to describe the moment.

“Kind of like the worst drop in your stomach that you can imagine,” Weiss said. “It’s hard to explain that emotion but it was tough.”

It began as a lump Weiss detected on a self-examination the previous spring. A trip to the family doctor that summer failed to yield a cause for concern. But when Weiss approached Nanooks Team Physician, Dr. Cary Keller, about it, Keller immediately scheduled a series of tests, including an ultrasound, which confirmed his suspicion.

Within two weeks, Weiss was back in Minnesota undergoing surgery to remove the tumorous testicle at the Mayo Clinic. Tests revealed the cancer had spread to his lymph system, requiring a trio of three-week rounds of chemotherapy.

“I would get treatment for anywhere from like five to seven hours Monday through Friday that first week,” Weiss said. “And then the second and third week of each round, I would just go one day a week for about an hour, hour and a half.”

WILL’S STORY

THE SUMMER OF 2020 and the global pandemic posed unprecedented challenges for everyone. For those with compromised immune systems like Will Francis, extra vigilance in the way of social distancing and mask wearing was, and remains, critical.

The then 19-year-old entrepreneur, and former Centennial High School hockey star, was forced to supervise his lawn and landscaping business from his truck rather than working side-by-side with the friends he employs due to his Acute LymphoblasticLeukemia (ALL) diagnosis that spring. Running your own business is not your average teenager’s summer job but Francis says it was born of necessity.

“Between hockey and football in high school, I couldn’t really work the schedule to have a normal job after school, so I would just mow lawns,” Francis said.

The trendsetting Francis was social distancing before it was all the rage worldwide after a doctor explained to him in March why he had been feeling so sick in recent weeks. With his parents, Jeff and Heather, by his side at a hospital in Grand Marais, Francis learned his white blood cell count was nearly 18 times higher than is considered normal.

“I think I remember saying, ‘Nah, you guys have the wrong guy, this couldn’t be me,’” Francis said. “But then, obviously, you kind of have to face reality and then realize this is happening; we’ve got to take the best plan to attack it.”

Although chemo was effective in shrinking Weiss’s metastatic lymph nodes by more than 50 percent, it was not enough for his doctors.

JACK’S STORY

On May 31, 2018, Weiss underwent aretroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) in which nearly 30 of his lymph nodes were surgically removed.

As difficult as the treatment and the surgeries were for Weiss to endure, he approached his battle as a means to an end. The hard part for him, he said, was the toll it took on his parents, particularly his mother.

“My mom was more looking at things long term and, obviously, as a parent, I couldn’t even describe her feelings,” Weiss said. “But I could tell things were eating her away and that just sucked to see.”

Six weeks of recovery limited Weiss to lifting nothing heavier than a gallon of milk, setting the 5-foot-11, 185-pound left-shot defenseman’s training back significantly less than a month before his return to Alaska.

Weiss arrived back in Alaska with only two months to train and prepare for achieving his goal of joining his Nanooks teammates on opening night.

“There were points where I was like, ‘God, I may never even be close to where I was at,’” Weiss said. “But being able to be in that lineup opening night felt pretty good and it just makes you appreciate a lot of things for sure.”

UAF coach Erik Largen credits Weiss’s work ethic and perseverance for his successful return to the ice.

“He’s battled his way through, whether that’s junior hockey, coming in as a walk-on, fighting through different injuries and now the ultimate thing with cancer,” Largen said. “He wasn’t going to be beaten by anything, including that.”

WILL’S JOURNEY

Francis, a Minnesota Duluth recruit, enrolled at UMD in January of 2020, after a meniscus tear in his left knee prematurely ended his second season with the USHL’s Cedar Rapids Rough Riders. His plans to attend school while rehabilitating his knee and getting familiar with his future teammates were going well until he began suffering from chronic fatigue.

“I thought it was just kind of like a common winter cold and it’d be something I kind of got over,” Francis said. “But it just kind of stayed and lingered.”

It lingered into a spring break snowmobiling trip to the family cabin in Lutsen. After a long day on the trails, Francis slept away most of the next two days while his appetite diminished considerably, prompting the trip to Grand Marais. Francis was then transported by ambulance to University of Minnesota’s Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis where a test the following day confirmed the preliminary diagnosis.

“Looking back at the month prior to what happened, it was pretty crazy,” Francis said. “Just because, at the time, I’m a 19-year-old kid.

“You almost think you’re invincible.”

JACK & WILL’S HOCKEY FAMILY

Jack said the outpouring of support he received from friends, family, team-mates and coaches was everything to him in his battle.

“From Fairbanks to Minnesota to my billet family down in Texas it was very, very motivating and made me feel like I’m not the only one in this,” Weiss said.

An unsung hero in his corner was friend and former Nanooks teammate Justin Woods, who could relate to Weiss’s plight like no one else. Woods missed his sophomore season at Alaska after being diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, the same bone-related cancer which sidelined the Philadelphia Flyers’ Oskar Lindblom for most of the 2019-20 season.

When Weiss received his diagnosis, the next scheduled flight home was still a week out but that’s when Woods, a Fairbanks native, and his family stepped in.

“His family just took me in and took care of me,” Weiss said. “You know they had been through the whole thing with Justin and I can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done for me.”

When asked what drove him through all he endured, Weiss paused for a moment and said while it would be easy to say hockey was his driving force, he found inspiration in those who fought alongside him while he received chemotherapy.

“I would constantly see the same people there and get to know these people and you talk to them and you figure out what they’re going through,” Weiss said. “I would say that put a lot of things in perspective and... made me feel like I could get through it.”

Francis finished up the final tough phase of his treatment in November with just maintenance treatments remaining spread out over the next year on his path to a complete recovery. He says he couldn’t have done it without the love and support of his family, his friends and the Centennial hockey community, particularly Centennial coach Ritch Menne, former Centennial assistant, and current Henry Sibley boys’ head coach, Ted Cheesebrough and Centennial strength and conditioning coach Steve Alford.

Francis also credits his former USHL coach, Mark Carlson, with preparing him for this battle.

“(Carlson) is a tough guy to play for, so I think that helped me a lot but also just, my whole way up, you know, nothing’s been easy,” Francis said. “My mental toughness has grown for sure through this entire little chemo phase here.”

That’s a trait that has not gone unnoticed by his coach-in-waiting, Minnesota Duluth coach Scott Sandelin.

“He’s a hard-nosed player and he’s competitive and I think that shows in the battle that he’s gone through,” Sandelin said. “Obviously, we’re excited that he’s doing well and look forward to getting him here.”

After all he’s gone through, no one is looking forward to it more than Will Francis himself.

“I’m going to have quite the big cheering section of family and friends that come up to Duluth,” Francis said. “It’s going to be something probably pretty emotional as well.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Weiss, who completed his MBA in December, remains unsure what the future holds for him professionally, but he wants to stay involved in hockey in some capacity.

“I think coaching would be somethingI’d be good at,” Weiss said. “Being a part of helping kids develop and understand the game and grow.”

Francis, meanwhile, is currently undecided on a major but, not surprisingly, is leaning toward a career in business entrepreneurship and/or management. But the 2019 sixth-round pick (No. 163 overall) by the Anaheim Ducks would like to stay in the game of hockey as long as he can as a player, scout, coach or even in a front office capacity.

COMEBACK KIDS

Will Francis not only received a massive outpouring of support from the Centennial hockey community in his fight against leukemia, his support system stretched from coast-to-coast and crossed an international border. The Anaheim Ducks prospect heard from his future club almost immediately and a few fairly big names offered him encouragement as well.

“I've heard from head coach, Dallas Eakins a few times, you know, just to stay strong and he sent me some motivational stuff,” Francis said. “And then I hear from Todd Marchant, who is the Director ofPlayer Development there, pretty often, just asking how things are going and if I ever needed anything.

“They’ve been huge.”

In addition, Francis heard from a variety of Ducks players, including captains Ryan Getzlaf and Josh Manson, who sent him get-well videos, and former Anaheim Hall-of-Fame defenseman Scott Niedermeyer.

Minnesota Wild assistant GM, Tom Kurvers, the Hobey-Baker-Award-winning UMD defenseman who is fighting his own battle against adenocarcinoma, a form of lung cancer, reached out to the future Bulldog and brought a few of his friends with him. Francis heard from former UMD star Brett Hull and Montreal Canadiens Hall-of-Famer Guy LaFleur, who is also currently fighting lung cancer, along with one other legend of the game.

“I was sitting in bed one day just talking to my dad and I got a call from an unknown number and answered it and it happened to be Bobby Orr, who's the greatest defenseman to ever play hockey,” Francis said. “I was kind of in awe and speechless. I was like,'Bobby Orr? The greatest defenseman to ever play hockey?' And he's like, 'Yeah.'”

Francis also said he’s received regular messages from the Minnesota Duluth program checking on his progress, offering encouragement and even a small gesture like a happy birthday text on his 20th birthday in November meant a lot to him, he says.

“It kind of just says how tight the hockey community is, as a whole, comparatively to other sports,” Francis said. “I think it's something special and I don't think it's something that can be recreated.”