Dr. Mulder: Wrapping up an incredible 60-year career 

MONTREAL - If you talk to people who work in sports, you may hear them say that what they do is important, but it’s not a question of life or death.

It’s a refrain used by those in the industry to put their work, which is done under high pressure and with intense scrutiny, in perspective.

But for some, that refrain isn’t always true.

One such person is Dr. David Mulder, the former Head Team Physician of the Canadiens, who recently retired after a remarkable 60-year career.

On January 29, 2000, Dr. Mulder was in attendance at the Molson Centre – now the Bell Centre – watching his Club take on the Philadelphia Flyers. It started out as just a regular, mid-season game, the Habs in the midst of a trying season in which their 40 points placed them at the bottom of the Northeast Division. (The Canadiens were a little travel-weary, having been stuck in Carolina a few extra nights because of a winter storm.)

As we all now know, the Habs-Flyers contest turned out to be no ordinary game. In the middle of the second period, journeyman forward Trent McCleary dove to block a shot by Philadelphia defenseman Chris Therien and was struck by the puck in the neck, an impact which fractured his larynx and also resulted in a collapsed lung.

Doctors Mulder, David Fleiszer, and Vincent Lacroix immediately sprang into action to treat the 27-year-old, performing an emergency tracheotomy and inserting a tube into his chest to restore his breathing at the hospital, treatments which began just 17 minutes after the initial impact.

The incident ultimately cost McCleary his playing career, but the Swift Current, SK native, now 51, survived.

The medical team’s swift response, and the difference it made in saving McCleary’s life, helped Dr. Mulder convince the NHL to change league protocols to have all team medical staffs located closer to the action.

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In September 2001, captain Saku Koivu became violently sick on his flight from Finland back to Montreal for Canadiens training camp. Complaining of severe discomfort in the stomach area, Koivu was seen by Dr. Mulder after spending the night of his return vomiting and looking ill.

After putting the then-26-year-old through a series of tests, Dr. Mulder and his medical team made the grim diagnosis: Koivu had cancer.

The captain would miss the first 79 games of the 2001-02 campaign, but on April 9, 2002, Koivu returned – his head still bald from his treatments – to a moving and unforgettable ovation from the Montreal crowd and helped the Canadiens beat the Ottawa Senators to book a ticket to the playoffs. The Habs upset the top-seeded Boston Bruins in the opening round of the postseason before falling to the Carolina Hurricanes in the next.

Koivu was named the 2001-02 winner of the Bill Masterton Trophy, awarded annually “to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.”

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Although he didn’t do it alone, Dr. Mulder has been credited by both players for saving their lives.

“He was the head of the team that saved my life. He’s a guy I owe everything to; he was the leader of the [medical] team,” McCleary said recently in a tribute to Dr. Mulder. “He’s the standard for doctors in the National Hockey League.

“I have three beautiful kids because of what you did that day. I have a lovely wife of 23 years because of what you did that day. There’s nothing more I can say other than thank you, Dr. Mulder.”

For his part, Koivu expresses his gratitude to Dr. Mulder for the loving care he received whenever he gets the chance – and did so with more than just words. The former Finnish center teamed up with Dr. Mulder to raise money towards the purchase of a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner for the Montreal General Hospital, helping to turn a terrible ordeal for one into a positive for so many by offering Montrealers an important tool in the fight against cancer in the city.

Dr. Mulder listed Koivu’s successful fight against the disease as the highlight of his tenure with the team.

“Maybe the most satisfying day in my career was the day that Saku Koivu returned to play after receiving a multi-drug chemotherapy and radiotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was such a fighter and he fought such a tough battle,” described Dr. Mulder. “The night he came back, he came to see me in the little doctor’s room and he just said, ‘I’m so grateful to be getting back on the ice.’ Then, he went back on the ice and had a standing ovation for several minutes. It was unforgettable for me.”

He may count a dizzying list of accomplishments to his name, but choosing the individual care of a patient as his top moment only reinforces what Dr. Mulder has meant to so many players and their families over the course of his 60-year career.

“To me, personally, and to my family, you became much more than a team doctor. You became a very close friend, you became someone that my family was able to turn to during my illness and recovery,” Koivu shared in a heartfelt message to Dr. Mulder. “It’s rare in life that you meet someone like you, David.”

On top of being a caring man and a skilled medical professional, Dr. Mulder spent his career advocating for player safety, trailblazing in the health field, and raising large amounts of money for important causes in the province.

“Dr. Mulder is a surgeon’s surgeon, a master surgeon, gentleman, leader, mentor, and builder. A huge legacy [of his] that I can’t overstate is the development of the trauma system in our province,” shared Dr. Liane Feldman, Surgeon-in-Chief and Chair of the Department of Surgery (MUHC). “Dr. Mulder is a very rare type of person. For someone who’s accomplished so much, he maintains a real humility that really encourages people around him to be their best.”

Dr. Mulder’s career wrapped up in the most fitting of ways: a benefit gala was recently held in his name and raised $1.5 million to be distributed to a variety of medical-, hockey-, and education-related causes in Quebec.

For a man who grew up in Saskatchewan dreaming of playing in the NHL, it was a beautiful way to hang up the stethoscope.