Defenseman’s return thrills Winterhawks

Daniel Johnston back in top form after major neck surgeries

By steve brandon

The Portland Tribune, Oct 13, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Winterhawk defenseman Daniel Johnston not only has made a comeback from surgery to remove a tumor from his neck, but he also has led the team this season in plus-minus ratings.

©2009 Soobum Im

Daniel Johnston says it was a “little bump in the road.”

A major bump in the neck would be more accurate, and it threatened to end the Portland Winterhawks defenseman’s career at age 15.

The trouble became apparent at the end of the 2007-08 Western Hockey League season, Johnston’s rookie year, when he felt a knot in his neck.

“Sometimes when I’d get hit, everything from my neck to my elbow on my left side would go dead,” he recalls. “We couldn’t figure out what it was.”

X-rays showed nothing wrong with his shoulder, but a chiropractor spotted a suspicious blurriness in the area of Johnston’s neck. A CT scan led to a meeting with a neurosurgeon and then seven-hour surgeries to remove a non-cancerous, golf ball-sized tumor on July 28 and Aug. 1, 2008.

“First, they took the bone mass out of my neck,” Johnston says. “Then they fused my T3 and T5 vertebrae and took out the T4.”

The Winterhawks and others weren’t sure that Johnston would be able to play again, but the Calgary, Alberta native is back on the ice – and he helped the team to an impressive 5-1 start, leading Portland in plus-minus rating (plus-10).

“We’re thrilled,” says coach Mike Johnston (no relation). “He had some coordination issues and some difficulty for a while in getting his game back. But he worked very hard over the summer, and he’s been really solid this year. He’s a gritty defenseman. Very competitive.”

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