ST. LOUIS — Logan Christiansen showed up at the Enterprise Center at 5:33 pm Thursday for his first day of “work.”
“Did you take your nap?” Jim Maier, the Blues’ longtime NHL security representative, asked.
The 14-year-old hesitated before responding.
“Security never lies!” Maier said, jokingly.
The truth was Christiansen hadn’t slept much the previous couple of nights, in part, because of what he was about to experience.
It was Hockey Fights Cancer night, an annual event in which the Blues show support for those who fought the disease or are continuing to fight. There were eight youths with special invitations from the organization, set to perform in roles such as security, anthem singer, reporter, organist and a member of the Blue Crew.
“This has become a tradition for us to be able to host patients from Siteman Kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital,” said Randy Girsch, vice president of community development and executive director of Blues for Kids. “This is really about being able to provide experiences to kids and their families to help them forget about whatever they’re going through on a daily basis. Whether it’s just for a few hours at the game, it’s really important that they’re able to live a normal life and have some fun and be a kid.”
Before the fun, though, Christiansen had to look official. Maier put an NHL lapel pin on his black suit, which was looking pretty dapper with his white shirt and blue tie.
“I originally got this for homecoming,” said Christiansen, a freshman at Francis Howell High in St. Charles. “Jim said I should look nice, and this is really the only thing I had.”
He then got a Blues security badge, granting him access throughout the building.
“You always see security people with these kinds of badges, so kind of cool,” Christiansen said.
It was explained that the duties Thursday night would be meeting with the Hurricanes coaches, reading the Blues’ lineup card to the players in the locker room, escorting the referees and linesmen to the ice, and anything else that required security’s attention.
“You ready?” Maier asked.
They headed downstairs and took the first of what would be many steps together.
Maier has been a fixture at Blues games for decades, and a few years ago he had the idea of bringing a young cancer patient to work with him, which eventually was tied into the Hockey Fights Cancer evening.
“I said, ‘Hey, let’s have a security rep for a night,’ where basically they would perform my duties,” Maier said. “We take it for granted because we have so much accessibility, so it’s great for them to see the other side of it on the event level. It’s fun to do because of the looks on their faces.”
About one hour before the puck dropped, the pair’s first stop was the referee’s room.
“We just checked in with them to see if they needed anything,” Maier said.
Officials Justin St. Pierre and Carter Sandlak and their crew were just fine, so Maier and Christiansen moved on to the next stop: the visiting dressing room.
Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour was drafted by the Blues in 1988 and spent the first two years of his career in St. Louis, so he and Maier have known each other for a long time.
As you would expect with a security rep, Maier prearranges everything, so Brind’Amour and his staff were aware they would be getting the pregame visit.
“We turned the corner and they all said, ‘Are you safe?'” Maier said.
“Yeah, I’m safe,” Christiansen replied.
The Canes told Christiansen that if they had any problems, they would let him know. They also asked if he was a Blues fan.
“Well, sure I’m a Blues fan!” he replied.
The coaches got a chuckle then shook Christiansen’s hand and wished him well.
As Maier and Christiansen walked away, Maier said, “The topping on the cake is next, when we’re going to go in the dressing room and he’s going to read the lineup. He’s excited about it, but he’s also nervous about pronouncing the names.”
But the Blues took some of that pressure off.
“They gave me some nicknames to call them,” Christiansen said. “There was ‘Schenner’ for (Brayden Schenn), ‘Barbie’ for (Ivan Barbashev). I think I could have pronounced them all. They weren’t too bad. They just sat there and gave me their full attention and I called the lineup.”
Logan has been busy kicking cancer’s butt and still found time to fire up the boys. #HockeyFightsCancer #stlblues pic.twitter.com/GF2vZki8xg
—St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) December 2, 2022
The locker room was different than Christiansen expected.
“It was a little bigger than I thought it would be,” he said.
And the players seemed larger than life.
“I’ve never done something like this before, so this is pretty shocking,” he said. “I got a fist bump from (Ryan) O’Reilly, and that was pretty cool because you always see him on TV.”
His classmates at school might be a little jealous when they hear that, and when they see the group photo.
“Yeah, my friends are big on hockey,” he said.
Less than two years ago, Christiansen was living a life similar to most of those friends. But in July 2021, he started complaining about headaches — a lot of them.
Parents Jason and Kathi didn’t think much of it.
“How do you treat a headache?” his father said. “You just kind of go through the motions of Advil.”
Until one day, it was so bad that their son passed out and fell in the shower.
Christiansen and his younger sister, Lilli, were home alone, so Lilli got hold of a neighbor, who immediately took him to the hospital. Doctors were treating him there when they decided because of the fall, they would do a CT scan of his head.
They found a mass in his thalamus, the egg-shaped structure in the middle of your brain. They rushed him for a biopsy, which revealed that he had Stage 4 diffuse midline gliomas, which is a tumor in the brain.
“The world stops!” his father said. “One of my biggest fears in life has been death. But when I found out about Logan, all those (fears) transferred to him. It’s a cancer that has no cure. There’s just treatment.”
The family flies to San Francisco every 28 days for treatment at the University of California-San Francisco. The tumor is about 3 millimeters in size, and between radiation and his medicine, it has stabilized.
However, Christiansen has cysts on the tumor that require regular draining, and also he doesn’t have much mobility on his left side. He doesn’t use his left hand and wears a brace on his left leg. He undergoes a lot of occupational and physical therapy.
He’s in Phase 2 of the treatment, and the secondary medicine he takes isn’t expected to be prescribed much longer, so the future is unclear.
“We’re not sure what the next steps will bring after the medicine runs out,” his father said. “It’s a roller coaster, I’ll tell you. You try to take the small victories, you know — the good days.”
Fortunately, this was one of them.
The elder Christiansen couldn’t get over how good his son looked in his suit.
“I’m like, ‘Man, this guy looks official,'” his dad said. “When I saw the badge, I was like, ‘This is real.’ It’s real, but it’s surreal. I’m like, ‘Is this happening?’ This is stuff that I dreamed about when I was a kid, to get pictures with the team and all that kind of background stuff.”
Truth be told, since the diagnosis, Christensen had never wanted this kind of treatment.
“He’s been offered the Make-A-Wishes and he’s always said, ‘No,'” his dad said. “He’s always wanted it to be for people that needed it more than him.”
In fact, when Christiansen found out that he would be going to a Blues game, he was adamant that his sister, a huge fan of the team, should get to go, too.
“I’ve got no words for this kid sometimes,” his dad said. “He impresses me!”
But as the night went along, with Christiansen liking his security duties more and more, he was glad to be there.
“I’ve never thought about doing it, but it’s pretty cool,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d be any good at it, though.”
Maier offered Christiansen some advice for when he saw anything suspicious.
“I told him if he’s got a question, he needs to ask it, and if he doesn’t like the answer, he’s got to ask another question,” Maier said.
“I’ve got to protect the place and keep people safe,” Christiansen said.
Speaking of which, soon it was time for Maier and Christiansen to meet with the officials again and lead them to the ice for the start of the game.
The two disappeared into the referee’s room, where the officials presented Christiansen with his own striped shirt, courtesy of their charitable organization, Zebras Care, which was created in 2007 and has the mission of bringing joy to children across North America.
Minutes later, Christiansen emerged from the room wearing the jersey, followed by St. Pierre, Sandlak and linesmen Mark Shewchyk and Bryan Pancich.
“I’ve got to make sure nobody is up there (in the tunnel) and just let them walk out,” Christiansen said.
Thanks to Christiansen, the four made it onto the ice safely.
“Now, we’ve got Logan a seat on the glass, so he can watch the game,” Maier said.
Maier sat with Christiansen in the corner of the rink and took in the game before returning Christiansen to his parents after the second period.
“That’s how you know someone really appreciates what they do, when they get to take somebody around and show them all the awesome perks they get to do,” his dad said of Maier. “He’s a great guy!”
It was a night of joy — and tears.
“I’ll tell you, Logan doesn’t fully understand the severity,” his dad said. “He doesn’t know what his diagnosis is, entirely. He knows he has Stage 4 and a brain tumor. If he were to ask, we’d tell him, but we try to keep him from Googling everything. He has to keep that positivity of ‘this is working,’ and right now it’s working. I don’t want him to forget that.
“I think that’s got to be out there for people to understand and know. How you handle your kid knowing what he has is… to me there’s really no right or wrong way. You’ll have various opinions. ‘Oh my God, he should know.’ But you know your kid, and you do whatever you can to keep him strong and focused on the goal at hand.”
For three hours, the Blues and Maier accomplished that, although it would have been difficult to make the family any bigger fans of the team.
“It’s hard to top what we already were,” his dad said. “But yeah, this is wonderful. I can’t believe that we got the opportunity to do something like this. I’m really glad that they reached out. This is a great team and a great city.”
(Photos by Jeremy Rutherford / The Athletic)
.