Krause: Melanson due to come back to Massachusetts next week

Al Melanson knows he’s a lucky man – even if, sometimes, he has to be reminded of it.Melanson, who coached the Lynn Jets combined hockey team this winter, suffered a heart attack in the middle of February, just as the regular hockey season was winding down. Things were touch and go for a long time, and Melanson swears that the concern, and prayers, of the Lynn community (and beyond) were what pulled him through.He’s due to come back to Massachusetts early next week to enter rehab in a Cambridge hospital. He has a long road back, but from the sounds of things, he’s up to the task.I talked to him via telephone yesterday, and even though we never discussed whether the conversation was on or off the record, I have a feeling he won’t mind if I recount a couple of things he said.First, he said, despite his upbeat spirit most of the time, he has his moments when the enormity of what happened to him really hits home ? and he gets depressed.”There was one day,” he said, “when I was really feeling sorry for myself. I was miserable, I was a bear with everyone ? the whole thing.”Then, he said, the phone in his hospital room rang. On the other end was an employee of his whom he’d promoted into a position of management.Melanson said he’d taken the man under his wing and nurtured him.”So I answered the phone,” he said, “and there’s this voice on the other end. He says who he is, and says someone told him it was OK to call and that if it’s not OK, he was sorry.”So I said, ‘hey, it’s me, it’s OK’,” Melanson said. “And he told me that nobody had ever done anything like that for him before, and that he wanted to thank me.”Geez,” Melanson said, “I get off the phone and there’s tears coming out of my eyes. You just don’t know how you affect people sometimes.”The other bit of correspondence came from a junior hockey player on the Jets, “a real, tough junior ? tough, tough kid.”The letter begins like any letter. ‘hi, coach. How are you doing’?” Melanson says.But then, the letter went on to say that the player wore his Lynn Jets jacket proudly, and that how he couldn’t wait for his senior year so he could do this all over again.”At the end,” Melanson said, “the kid says, ‘I love you, coach’. Imagine that? Here’s a kid – and, like I said, a tough kid, just trying to find himself ? and he does this. Amazing.”What’s amazing, of course, is that Melanson is not an easy coach. There’s no halfway about Al Melanson, which is why if anyone can survive this, he can. Anyone who has ever played for him will tell you he’s demanding, and that if you don’t do things his way, and to his satisfaction, you’ll hear about it in spades.But, as his assistant, Ron Gaudet, said right after Melanson had the heart attack, “he will always have your back.” He’s a classic example of the tough coach with a heart of gold.And that’s why so many people have rallied to his side. Former players, including Lynn firefighter John Barry, have made weekly trips to Maine. Gaudet has been up there several times.And even though former North Shore Spirit owner Nick Lopardo pulled out of Lynn last September, he came up to Maine the minute he heard about Melanson, and spent a week in Portland to be with his friend and former partner.I know one thing. Melanson and his family will be very happy to be in Massachusetts, and close to Lynn. I know another thing too: Those who know him will be even happier to see him back here.Steve Krause is sports editor of The Item