RILEY’S FIGHT

HOCKEY’S HEALING TOUCH

Riley Kane (left) alongside his brother, Owen, all geared up for the Royals. (Photo courtesy of the Kane family)

Riley proudly skates for the Rogers Royals Mite A Blue Avalanche team for which Tera helps out as an assistant coach. The former Tera Morris grew up playing youth hockey in Roseville, played high school hockey at Totino-Grace and Eden Prairie before competing collegiately at Division III University of Wisconsin-Superior. Hockey is in the family blood as her father, Tim, is currently the head coach of the Lakeville South girls varsity hockey team while her brother, Michael, serves as an assistant varsity coach for Blaine’s girls team.

Riley is passionately proud of his power-turn prowess and lists that as one of his favorite things about hockey, next to hanging out with his friends at practice, which he admits comes with a price.

“I always get yelled at for talking too much,” Riley explained.

He can be forgiven for wanting to catch up with his teammates at practices because he misses about half of them either due to fatigue from chemotherapy or his white blood cell count being too low for him to be around groups of people. But even when he is able to be on the ice Riley can’t get away from the side effects of his treatments.

“Chemo causes neuropathy in his hands and feet, so he has trouble coordinating sometimes,” Tera said. “He gets a little frustrated during practice because he can’t keep up, but he has so much fun doing it that he gets over the frustration pretty easily.”

Between six weeks of daily commutes to the Mayo Clinic for radiation and at least twice weekly runs to and from Minneapolis Children’s Hospital for various appointments, 2021 has been quite a challenge for the Kanes who have had to balance the needs of Riley’s rambunctious 7-year-old brother, Owen as well. But family, friends and the Rogers hockey community have really stepped up when the family needed it most and they came out in droves to be there for Riley’s big night at the ‘X.’

“I’ve been part of a hockey community for 30-some years,” Tera said, fighting back tears. “They’ve been part of wonderful things in our life, like winning championships and that sort of thing. But we’ve also lost people on the way and they always come together.

“The hockey community really is special.”