Skip to Content

Student Rewarded $10,000 for Speaking Out

Saint John, NB, Canada / 97.3 The Wave
Nesta Matthews
Jan 4, 2022 | 1:39 PM


Student Rewarded $10,000 for Speaking Out

via twitter.com/Canucks

Nadia Popovici is a Seattle Kraken fan and had a chance in October to see her team play their first EVER home game against the Vancouver Canucks. Great seats too! She was close enough to the Canuck’s bench to have a great view of their assistant equipment manager Brian “Red” Hamilton. Specifically, his neck.

“I saw his and I was like, wow, that is a picture perfect example of what a melanoma looks like,” Popovici said to the Associated Press.

Popovici is a 22-year-old graduate of the University of Washington with plans to soon attend medical school. She’s done a lot of volunteer work in hospitals including helping in an oncology ward. But, how do you get the attention of someone during a crazy hockey game? Especially someone who works for the opposite team of the jersey you’re wearing?

Using the Notes app on her phone, Popovici managed to get Hamilton’s attention between periods, pressing her phone against the plexiglass to tell him her suspicions. The note explained in large font, all caps, that a mole on the back of his neck looked cancerous.

Three months later we know that she was right.

Hamilton had team doctors look at the mole soon after the team returned to Vancouver. The biopsy results showed that the mole did have cancerous cells. Doctors told Hamilton that the situation could have become life-threatening if it wasn’t caught as early as it was.

We know the whole story now because the Canucks posted on Twitter on New Year’s Day, looking for the identity of their real-life hero.

Letter from Canucks. Test follows image.It read, “I am trying to find a very special person and I need the hockey community’s help. To this woman I am trying to find, you changed my life, and now I want to find you to say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!

Problem is, I don’t know who you are or where you are from. I do know that you were sitting behind the Canucks bench the night the Seattle Kraken played their first ever home game. That evening, Oct 23rd, and the message you showed me on your cell phone will forever be etched into my brain and has made a true life-changing difference for me and my family. Your instincts were right and that mole on the back of my neck was a malignant melanoma and thanks to your persistence and the quick work of our doctors, it is now gone.

I want you all to know that this isn’t about me. It’s about an incredible person taking the time to notice something concerning and then finding a way to point it out during the chaos of a hockey game. Going to great lengths to get my attention from the stands while I did my job on the Canucks bench. We are looking for this incredible person and we need you to share this with your friends and families to help us find a real life hero, so I can express my sincerest gratitude.”

It took less than an hour to find her! Popovici had just come off a volunteer shift at a crisis hotline when she got the call. The teams set up a meet between her and Hamilton 90 minutes before the Canucks/Kraken game that night. He got a chance to thank her but the teams wanted to do more.

The Kraken told the story midway through the first period to a standing ovation from the crowd and announced that the Kraken and the Canucks would be giving Popovici a joint gift of $10,000 to help with her medical school expenses.