Eddie Olczyk is in the middle of fighting cancer, but he’s ready to get back to work.
Olczyk will return to his seat next to Mike “Doc” Emrick as NBC’s top hockey analyst Wednesday night, when the Blackhawks and Blues square off. He’ll also resume his duties as the Blackhawks analyst on the local broadcast the following night.
“Doing what I love to do will help me pass the time,” Olczyk told USA Today. “Looking at the calendar hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month gets a little long.”
Olczyk is five weeks into a chemotherapy treatment schedule to fight colon cancer that will last 24 weeks. He told USA Today he has gone through three of the 12 scheduled treatments. He said he won’t work during the weeks when he has a treatment, but will try to fit in games around that.
“We have some dates that we have highlighted and hopefully I will be strong enough to do the job,” Olczyk said. “If I am not feeling good, I just have to be honest with everyone and tell them I can’t do it.”
Olczyk, who played parts of three seasons with the Rangers and was a member of the 1994 Stanley Cup-winning team, is also a horse-racing analyst for NBC and his love for that sport often blends into his work in hockey.
“We are a quarter of the way into the race and we are grinding it out,” he said.