Mandi Jocelyn Schwartz (February 3, 1988April 3, 2011) was a
Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
player with the
Yale Bulldogs
The Yale Bulldogs are the college sports teams that represent Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA national championships ...
. She was a three time
Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Hockey All-Academic, and played 73 consecutive games with the team before being diagnosed with
acute myeloid leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with haematopoiesis, normal blood cell production. Sympt ...
in December 2008. Prior to joining Yale University, Schwartz had played
minor hockey for
Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...
. Her younger brother,
Jaden currently plays for the
Seattle Kraken
The Seattle Kraken are a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle. The Kraken compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. The t ...
in the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
. Her brother Rylan currently plays for
Glasgow Clan of the Elite Ice Hockey League in Great Britain.
After her diagnosis, bone marrow drives were at Yale and in Canada. These drives did not result in a match for Schwartz, they did result in six matches for other patients on the registry who were waiting for a transplant. As of February 1, 2018, 39 bone marrow matches have resulted from drives conducted at Yale University alone. Schwartz underwent a
stem cell
In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can change into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of cell ...
transplant from donated
umbilical cord
In Placentalia, placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord i ...
blood in September 2010. In December 2010, her cancer returned and she discontinued most forms of treatment. Schwartz died in
Regina,
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...
, at the age of 23. After her death, the ECAC hockey rookie of the year award was renamed in her honour, and an annual women's hockey tournament is named after her in Saskatchewan. Her family and Yale University have continued to support drives to identify bone marrow donors after her death.
Hockey career
Schwartz played
minor hockey at
Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in
Wilcox, Saskatchewan, and served as team captain.
While at Notre Dame, her team captured the provincial championship for Saskatchewan three times, and went on to win the Western Canada championships each of those three years.
Schwartz attended evaluation camps for
Canadian national women's ice hockey team hosted by
Hockey Canada
Hockey Canada (which merged with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association in 1994) is the national governing body of ice hockey and ice sledge hockey in Canada. It is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation and controls the majority ...
.
In 2003, she played for Saskatchewan at the
2003 Canada Games, and helped capture a bronze medal.
She joined the
Yale Bulldogs
The Yale Bulldogs are the college sports teams that represent Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA national championships ...
after graduating high school in 2006.
Schwartz played 2 full seasons and part of a third at Yale University, before being diagnosed with leukemia. During her freshman season in 2006-07, she played in all 31 of her team's games, scoring 5 goals and adding 8 assists. She was an ECAC Hockey All-Academic during the three seasons she played.
As a sophomore, Schwartz played in 31 games, scoring 4 goals and adding 10 assists. Her ten assists were third most on her team that season.
At the start of her junior season, Schwartz had played in 11 games before being diagnosed with leukemia. She tallied one assist during those games, but seemed to be struggling with her endurance, despite being in excellent shape. Schwartz was initially diagnosed with
anemia
Anemia (also spelt anaemia in British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen. This can be due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin availabl ...
, but received the diagnosis of
acute myeloid leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with haematopoiesis, normal blood cell production. Sympt ...
the following day.
At the time she was forced to leave her team due to her illness, she had played in 73 consecutive games for the Yale Bulldogs.
Illness and death
Schwartz was diagnosed with
acute myeloid leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with haematopoiesis, normal blood cell production. Sympt ...
in December 2008, during her junior year at Yale.
She had been sick for much of the fall semester, but attributed it to stress and an initial diagnosis of
anemia
Anemia (also spelt anaemia in British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen. This can be due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin availabl ...
. She was diagnosed on December 8, 2008.
She started treatment for her cancer in December 2008 and was able to briefly return to school and began practicing with the hockey team again in January 2010. In April 2010, she received word that her cancer had returned and was forced to leave school.
Doctors had decided that Schwartz's best option for treatment would be either a
cord blood or
bone marrow
Bone marrow is a semi-solid biological tissue, tissue found within the Spongy bone, spongy (also known as cancellous) portions of bones. In birds and mammals, bone marrow is the primary site of new blood cell production (or haematopoiesis). It i ...
transplant. In the hopes of finding a match, bone marrow drives were organized at Yale University and at several locations throughout Canada. In the first two years Yale University hosted drives, they added more than 1600 potential donors.
These bone marrow drives did not result in a match for Schwartz, but doctors found a suitable donor from umbilical cord blood. In September 2010, Schwartz underwent the transplant in Seattle.
Her cancer went into remission after the transplant, but returned again in December 2010. Shortly after this, Schwartz decided to discontinue most forms of treatment.
Rather than hoping for a cure, Schwartz continued with
palliative chemotherapy designed to minimize her symptoms.
On April 2, 2011, she entered a Regina hospital and died the following day.
Personal life
Schwartz was the daughter of Rick and Carol Schwartz. Brothers
Jaden and Rylan both played for the
Colorado College
Colorado College is a private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory, the college offers over 40 majors a ...
men's ice hockey team. Jaden was a first round draft pick of the
St. Louis Blues in the
2010 NHL Entry Draft, and currently plays for the
Seattle Kraken
The Seattle Kraken are a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle. The Kraken compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. The t ...
.
Jaden, having previously worn the number 9 during his first two years with the Blues, switched to number 17 as a tribute to his older sister; it was the number she wore on ice.
Her brother Rylan has played in six leagues over the course of his professional hockey career, currently playing the 2020/21 season with the Lausitzer Foxes of the German DEL2. In high school, she briefly dated Guillaume Lauzon, drummer for
The Mahones and The Brains, before meeting Kaylem Prefontaine to whom she would get engaged to. They had planned to marry in 2012.
Legacy
Yale University has made bone marrow drives an annual event on campus. The first two drives signed up over 1,600 potential donors. The 2011 drive was held in April, shortly after Schwartz's death. Shortly after the event, it was announced that the drive had unofficially signed up almost 900 potential donors.
Although the school's drives did not find a match for Schwartz, they have generated 28 other matches for patients who required a bone marrow transplant.
The success of Yale's bone marrow drives is statistically unlikely, according to Sam Rubin who works in Yale's sports publicity department. Rubin stated, "Usually, it takes tens of thousands of people to get one match. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
ECAC Hockey renamed its Student-Athlete of the Year Award in memory of Mandi Schwartz. The announcement was made on the day of what would have been Mandi's 24th birthday. "ECAC Hockey's Mandi Schwartz Student-Athlete of the Year Award goes to a student-athlete who excels in the classroom, participates in fifty percent of the team's games, and demonstrates leadership on and off the ice. Each head coach nominates a student-athlete, and a committee made up of school administrators has the task of selecting the recipient."
Schwartz's high school, Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, in Wilcox, Saskatchewan hosts the Mandi Schwartz Memorial Tournament annually. It is advertised as the biggest female hockey tournament in western Canada.
References
External links
The Mandi Schwartz Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Mandi
1988 births
2011 deaths
Athol Murray College of Notre Dame alumni
Deaths from cancer in Saskatchewan
Deaths from leukemia in Canada
Ice hockey people from Yorkton
Yale Bulldogs women's ice hockey players