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DAMIAN CRISTODEROIt hasn't been all smiles for Martin St. Louis, who lost a close friend to cancer.
TAMPA - Martin St. Louis' head was down, his voice almost a whisper. There were even moments when it sounded as if his voice cracked.
The Lightning wing was sitting Monday in a quiet St. Pete Times Forum locker room, long after the mingling reporters covering the East final between Tampa Bay and the Flyers had left.
St. Louis slowly taped the butt end of a stick he would use in that night's Game 2 while searching for the right words.
"Guilty. That's what I was looking for," he said. "With all the success I'm having, I felt guilty. I felt guilty like it wasn't fair."
It is a dark emotion stirred by the death of Frederic Sigouin, 27, one of St. Louis' closest friends from his hometown of Laval, who died of cancer April 12 during the East quarterfinals with the Islanders.
St. Louis said he dedicated the postseason to his friend and prays to his memory before each game. But Sigouin's death also struck a larger nerve.
Through phone calls to Sigouin, St. Louis realized how little it took to brighten his spirits. That, he said, kindled in him a growing interest in buying a Times Forum suite that, similar to one purchased by teammate Brad Richards, would be available on game days to kids with cancer and their families.
"It made me kind of step back," St. Louis said. "A lot of good things happened for me this year. But some things make you question, are all these things really that important?
"Of course I love the game and I love to win and I love to score goals. I'm hard on myself when I'm not playing well. But at the same time I have to be ... (pause). You just have to realize when things are not going good, it's not the end of the world."
"It was quite hard for him," St. Louis' wife, Heather, said. "It was the first time somebody, a friend of his, his age, someone he grew up with (died).
"A lot of times he would say, "Why him? Here I am. I have so much and this happens."'
St. Louis and Sigouin played youth hockey together and from ages 14 to 16 lived on the same street. St. Louis said Sigouin's father, Serge, sometimes joined the street hockey games.
St. Louis said Sigouin overcame cancer two years ago. But St. Louis said he found out just before Christmas his friend again was sick and doctors could do no more.
"The cancer," St. Louis said, "had spread all over the place."
St. Louis said he sent Sigouin an autographed Lightning jersey, and phoned every three or four days.
The conversations weren't about Sigouin's illness. They spoke of St. Louis' career and Tampa Bay's season.
"It was more a matter of trying to provide for him some sort of distraction," Heather said. "He was trying to live vicariously through Marty."
St. Louis, 28, led the NHL with 94 points and is a leading candidate to be league MVP.
He said his success made Sigouin's situation more difficult to handle.
"I talked to him on a Friday and he died on Monday," St. Louis said. "I felt that it's not fair. Here we're playing hockey together as kids and wanting the same thing, and here I was in the NHL, doing well and he's in the hospital battling for his life. It was on my mind quite a bit."
St. Louis' emotions already were raw from the death of his maternal grandmother earlier in the year. And his 11-month-old son, Ryan, made him understand Serge's loss.
St. Louis has long admired Richards' suite, where food, games and souvenirs are provided to cancer patients. St. Louis said when he signs his new contract, that should provide a substantial bump from the two-year, $2.5-million deal he is completing, it will be time to give back.
"It's a big deal," he said. "To help those people have a better life, have a normal life, as normal as it can be, I guess. If I can provide that with entertainment and put a smile on a kid's face, it's worth it."