I first started telling Wade MacLeod’s story in 2018, when friends launched a GoFundMe campaign to help support his young family as he tried to battle a Grade 3 glioblastoma tumour in his brain.
In the years since, we’ve checked in periodically to document his ongoing health challenge and his effort to keep his professional hockey career going.
What follows are a few of those stories, all of which originally appeared in the Tri-City News. The first appeared in March, 2019. The second was published in August, 2021, and the third is from January, 2025.

Port Moody hockey player stays positive after third clash with cancer

Wade MacLeod loves the view from the Port Moody condo he shares with his wife, Karly, and their 17-month-old daughter, Ava James. 

Looking out the expansive windows of their living room to the snow-peaked mountains and the twinkling water of Burrard Inlet far below is thearaputic, MacLeod says. But it’s not where he should be in the waning weeks of winter.

MacLeod and his young family were supposed to be back in Germany, where the 32 year-old Coquitlam native was looking to build on the point-a-game pace he was scoring last year as a professional hockey player with the Frankfurt Lions.

But two surgeries within two months last summer derailed that dream. Doctors removed a Grade 3 Glioblastoma tumour in his brain for a third time.

MacLeod hopes he can get his playing career back on track, and the results of his latest MRI showed no further growth of the disease. That has only fuelled his optimism.

In fact, it’s that positive outlook that helped get MacLeod back on the ice after two previous encounters with the disease, said Karly, who’s also from Coquitlam.

“No matter how many times he’s knocked down, he’ll get up again and go for it,” she said.

MacLeod’s tumour was first diagnosed after he collapsed on the ice during a game in Springfield, Mass., where he was playing his second season as a pro after competing for four years with Norheastern University in Boston. Doctors removed a golf-ball sized non-cancerous tumour from the left side of his brain and he lost the ability to speak.

Returning to the ice
Speech therapy got that back, and extensive rehab allowed MacLeod to return to the ice, this time with a team in the ECHL, a rung down hockey’s minor-professional ladder. He knocked around various outposts, from Indiana to Idaho, including a 34-game stint with the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League, just below the NHL. Then he headed to Germany.

It was after a 61-point season with the Rosenheim Star Bulls, a second-division pro team, that the disease reasserted itself. MacLeod underwent a second surgery in September, 2016, then worked his way back to the ice the following March, with another ECHL in Allen, Texas. He scored 13 points in 13 games, and, in September, 2017, he signed with Frankfurt.

‘Everything changed’
Going back to Germany, this time to Dresden with their newborn daughter, was supposed to be the time of their lives, Karly said. “Then everything changed.”

MacLeod took the latest diagnosis in stride.

“It is what it is,” he said, then set about doing whatever he had to do to get better again and return to the ice.
Currently in the midst of a six-month course of chemotherapy treatment, MacLeod hooked up with Port Moody Integrated Health to plot a holistic path back to health that includes speech therapy — last summer’s operations again affected his ability to speak — occupational and physical therapy. He changed his diet to eliminate refined sugar and reduce his intake of carbohydrates. Several times a week he gets special hyperthermia treatment that tries to kill cancer cells with high temperatures.

Both Wade and Karly visit with a sports psychologist to deal with the mental and emotional challenges of his disease.

Community support
A fundraising campaign launched on the crowdsourcing website gofundme.com last August by MacLeod’s friend, Mike Armstong, has raised more than $124,000 so far, making much of the supplementary care possible.

More importantly, MacLeod said, the messages of support that continue to get posted on the site from every waystation on his journey through hockey, even as far back as his minor days at the Burnaby Winter Club, and from Merritt where he played for the BC Hockey League’s Centennials, propel him forward.

“It drives my strength and positivity more than you can imagine,” MacLeod said, adding his whole family was brought to tears when they first started seeing the donations and messages come in as he recovered from his fourth surgery.

While some treatment days can be long and gruelling, sapping MacLeod’s strength and confining him to the couch to take in the view from a special massage pad Karly got him for Christmas, he said he’s been able to gain a new appreciation for life’s small moments, playing catch with his daughter (“She has a wicked spiral,” he said), or the beauty around him during walks along the Shoreline trail.

MacLeod was last on the ice in December, at a stick-and-puck session with his brother and brother-in-law. He said the feeling of holding the stick in his hands, gliding around the ice, chasing down the puck, was “unbelieveable.”

He can’t wait to get that feeling back. Again.

Wade MacLeod has already scored the biggest win of his life

In preparation for his return to professional hockey, Wade MacLeod has been working every weekday with his trainer, Kai Heinonen. MARIO BARTEL/TRI-CITY NEWS

Even if Wade MacLeod doesn’t score a goal with his new Manchester Storm hockey team, he’s already achieved the biggest victory of all.

The 34-year-old left winger from Port Moody beat cancer – not once, not twice, but three times.

And when MacLeod’s doctor gave him the all-clear last November, that the Grade 3 Glioblastoma tumour that had recurred in his head for a third time was completely gone, he knew what he had to do.

“I said from the very beginning that cancer wasn’t going to be the reason I retire from professional hockey,” MacLeod said after a recent workout at Coquitlam’s Planet Ice with his trainer Kai Heinonen and veteran NHLer Brad Hunt.

The fact MacLeod is able to share the ice and keep up with the newly-signed defenceman for the Vancouver Canucks is a testimony to the dedication of getting his career, and life, back on the rails.

Three years ago, MacLeod had to relearn how to walk and speak again after two surgeries to remove a recurring tumour that had reformed in his brain as he prepared to play a third professional season in Germany with Dresden Eislowen.

When MacLeod was diagnosed after having seizures as he moved from Frankfurt, where he’d scored 49 points in 49 games for the second division Lions, he, his wife Karly, and their young daughter, Ava, headed back to Canada for surgery. Two months later, the tumour returned for a third time, and he was under the knife again, to be followed by radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

A GoFundMe fundraising campaign to help the young family get through the tough time raised more than $100,000 from donations wherever MacLeod’s skates had taken him — from Merritt where he played junior hockey with the BC Hockey League’s Centennials, to Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., to minor league teams in Springfield, Mass., Evansville, Ind., Toronto, Boise, Idaho, Allen, Texas, as well as Rosenheim and Frankfurt in Germany.

Return to health
Some of the money went to MacLeod’s return to health and rehabilitation that was coordinated through Port Moody Integrated Health. Dietary changes, occupational and physical therapy, as well as hyperthermia treatment to kill lingering cancer cells with high heat, all contributed to his battle against the disease that first presented itself in 2013 when he collapsed on the ice during an American Hockey League game in Springfield.

A four-hour operation removed a golf-ball sized tumour from the left side of MacLeod’s brain and, after extensive rehab, he was able to get back on the ice the next season, splitting his time between the Springfield Falcons and the ECHL’s Evansville IceMen.

Three lost years
But the double recurrence of the tumour in 2018 has cost three prime years of MacLeod’s hockey career. Getting back to a place where he feels he can compete again on the ice has taken a lot of work with Heinonen, whose background includes martial arts. The two are together for hours every weekday, either on the ice or in the gym. They use karate to sharpen hand speed, balance and peripheral vision, circuit and core training, as well as visualization.

MacLeod said he feels in the best shape of his life. Earlier this summer, he told his agent he was ready to play again.

Limited opportunities
But opportunities for an aging minor leaguer who’s been out of the game for three years were limited. Norway or France were possibilities, MacLeod’s agent told him.

It was the Storm of Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League that expressed the most interest. The team’s coach, Alberta native Ryan Finnerty, also has a young family and was familiar with MacLeod’s story.

“It all worked out,” MacLeod said of the process that landed him a contract, adding he’ll head to England in about mid-September, then his family that now includes a newborn sister to Ava, will follow a few weeks later.

MacLeod said he’s excited about getting back into a dressing room with teammates, then hitting the ice again with fans in the stands.

‘Never give up on your dreams’
“It’s going to be so unreal,” he said. “The biggest thing is never give up on your dreams and always stay positive.”

While MacLeod is hopeful the opportunity he’s being given in Manchester might lead to bigger and better things, he said he already feels he’s accomplished so much.

“I beat cancer.”

‘Desperate for a solution’: Uncertainty clouds future of Port Moody hockey player

A glioblastoma tumour finally forced Port Moody’s Wade MacLeod to retire from his hockey career. MARIO BARTEL/TRI-CITY NEWS FILE PHOTO

A Port Moody hockey player battling Grade 4 brain cancer is girding for another round of radiation treatment.
In an update to a GoFundMe page raising money to support Wade MacLeod’s treatment of a glioblastoma tumour, Karly MacLeod said a sixth operation in November allowed doctors to remove “a huge portion” of the growth.

But uncertainty about her husband’s future remains.

“Since Wade’s surgery, we have been in limbo with treatment but desperate for a solution,” Karly MacLeod said.

Wade MacLeod, who grew up in Port Moody and played for the Merritt Centennials in the BC Hockey League before attending Northeastern University, was playing for the Springfield Falcons in the American Hockey League when he first fell ill in 2013 after collapsing during a game.

Doctors found a non-cancerous tumour the size of a golf ball in the left side of MacLeod’s brain. After it was removed, and following extensive physical and speech therapy, he resumed his playing career in the ECHL and 34 games with the AHL’s Toronto Marlies before heading to Europe.

MacLeod scored 61 points in 50 games for the second-division Rosenheim Star Bulls in Germany and was preparing to return overseas for a second season when he had a second seizure.

This time MacLeod was diagnosed with a cancerous glioblastoma.

Back on the ice
Six months later though, he was back on the ice with the ECHL’s Allen Americans in Texas, then signed with the Frankfurt Lions in Germany the following season.

A third seizure felled MacLeod in September 2018.

Doctors removed a Grade 3 glioblastoma tumour. Several months of chemotherapy followed, along with speech, physical and occupational therapy as well as dietary changes and special hyperthermia treatments that use high temperatures to kill cancer cells.

In November 2020, MacLeod got the go-ahead to resume training and the following August he told the Tri-City News he was in the best shape of his life as he prepared to join the Manchester Storm in Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League.

“The biggest thing is never give up on our dreams and always stay positive,” MacLeod said following an on-ice workout at Planet Ice in Coquitlam.

MacLeod played seven games in Manchester, scoring one point, then signed with the Narvik Arctic Eagles in Norway.

Turning the page on hockey
But in June 2023, MacLeod said his hockey journey was over.

“I gave all my life to hockey and now it is time to turn the page,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

A fifth brain surgery in December 2023, confirmed the worst fears of MacLeod’s family, that includes two young daughters; his glioblastoma tumour was now Grade 4 — the most serious and aggressive form of the disease.

A heavy toll
In her most recent update, posted by Karly MacLeod on Jan. 18, 2025, she said Wade’s battle and sixth surgery have exacted a toll: Changes to his motor and speech skills have necessitated alterations to their home and the couple accelerated a longstanding plan to renew their vows on the tenth anniversary of their wedding so they could celebrate with their daughters.

“We’ve learned the importance of living in the moment and taking everything one day at a time,” Karly MacLeod said, adding she’s also dialing back her work as an interior designer to help care for husband and manage his upcoming treatment plan that includes four weeks of radiation along with hyperthermia, drug and dietary therapies as well as some alternative medicine approaches.

That means some of the almost $142,000 that has been raised so far through the GoFundMe campaign will go towards supporting MacLeod’s family as well as covering medical expenses that aren’t insured, Karly MacLeod said.

“Some days can be beautiful and some days can be hard,” she said. “We feel the love and it has helped us immensely to continue taking each foot forward and never giving up.”