That might be the most inspirational sentence in Lightning history. Those were the words John Cullen heard from doctors in 1998, telling him he had beaten cancer.
In March of 1997, Cullen, a skilled, playmaking center, thought he had the flu. When the symptoms would not go away, he went to the doctor and learned he didn't have a mere cold. He had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
With treatment, the prognosis was good, a 92 percent chance of recovery. But when radiation and chemotherapy, which robbed him of his hair, strength and playing career, did not work, Cullen's odds of survival plummeted to 50-50. He had a bone-marrow transplant in November 1997 and his heart stopped for a minute during the procedure.
Incredibly, he not only survived but returned to the ice in 1998, scoring a goal in his first game back, an exhibition game in Austria. Cancer and the treatments had ravaged his body too severely, however, and he retired on Nov. 27, 1999 after playing four more NHL games in 1998.
He stayed with the organization, though, as an assistant coach before moving to Atlanta in May 2000 with his wife, Val, and daughter, Kennedy, to run a car dealership owned by his brother.
