The first time I remember hearing the name ‘Mandi Schwartz’ was a few months before the 2010 NHL draft.

Mandi was a tenacious forward on the Yale University women’s team, and the return of her cancer, acute myeloid leukemia, created a massive groundswell in the hockey community for bone marrow registry.

That June, the 22-year-old was in a hospital in Regina, Saskatchewan, undergoing chemotherapy, when her father, mother and younger brother traveled to Los Angeles for the draft.

Jaden Schwartz had just finished up a season with the Tri-City Storm of the United States Hockey League, where he solidified his spot as an NHL prospect and got on the St. Louis Blues’ radar. The night of the first round – June 25 – was his 18th birthday.

“Grandma was nice enough to stay with Mandi while my wife Carol and I went to the draft,” said Rick Schwartz, Jaden’s father. “We didn’t know if he was going to be drafted or not. We heard about teams that were potentially going to take him. But when they said, ‘From Wilcox, Saskatchewan, the Blues select Jaden Schwartz … what an awesome feeling that was! I know Grandma and Mandi, they just jumped up and had tears in their eyes. That day was a way for us to get something positive in our lives, right?”

It was like the Blues had received two players for the price of one draft pick, as the Schwartz story became St. Louis’ story. That night in LA, several members of the Blues’ brass met the family for dinner, and “they talked about Mandi right away,” Rick Schwartz remembers.

Before Jaden would ever suit up for his first NHL game, the Blues adopted his sister, promoting the need for bone marrow registry along with Yale University, which began hosting drives. Thousands of prospective donors in the U.S. and Canada stepped up, but with Mandi’s condition worsening, finding a perfect match was still proving difficult.

“That’s one of the hardest things a family has to go through, waiting and waiting, while her clock is ticking,” Carol Schwartz recalled.

On Sunday, April 3, 2011, the dream of receiving that life-saving phone call for Mandi dissolved, when she passed away at age 23.

Honoring Mandi

The memory of the little girl who grew up to be team captain at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame before attending Yale didn’t die that day, however. Among the many events in Mandi’s honor, Yale, where she once played 73 consecutive games, hosted an annual “White Out,” in which fans wore all white clothing to a Bulldogs game at Ingalls Rink.

In 2014, the Blues’ road schedule allowed them to attend the fourth annual “White Out.” They held a practice on campus during their visit and then watched as Jaden, who was in his second season in the NHL, dropped the puck before the women’s game. He also was able to see his sister’s locker, where her No. 17 sweater still hung.

“It was very emotional because it was an opportunity for Jaden to see where Mandi spent some of her college years,” Carol Schwartz said. “I wanted him to be there, but to have the team come with him, I think it kept him stable and supported him through it. It was a very positive experience for him and he was very glad to have gone through it.”

At the end of the 2013-14 season, Jaden decided to pay tribute in an even more visible way. When Blues teammate Vladimir Sobotka left for Russia to play in the Kontinental Hockey League, Jaden went to the club and requested to switch to No. 17 from No. 9. The team didn’t blink, so he called his parents to inform them, and their eyes watered.

“He called us and said, ‘I asked for No. 17. I’d like to wear that in Mandi’s honor,’” said Rick Schwartz, choking up between sentences. “They said they were going to give it to him, so that was pretty special. That was a good day.”

Six and a half years after Mandi’s passing, there remain good days, like Saturday night at Scottrade Center. Rick and Carol were in St. Louis for a bone marrow registry drive hosted by BeTheMatch.org.

The organization says that every three minutes, someone is diagnosed with blood cancer and 70 percent of patients needing a marrow transplant do not have a matching donor in their family, leaving the hope of 14,000 patients per year in the hands of someone outside their family.

Rick Schwartz stood outside Section 114 between periods of the Blues-Minnesota game Saturday and watched as some 50 people signed up to be potential donors. Each were handed an UpperDeck trading card of Mandi in her Yale uniform, with the title “Heroic Inspirations.”

“Mandi told us, one of her missions was that if you can’t help me, let’s help others,” Rick Schwartz said. “We want that awareness and we’re saving people’s lives because of it.”

Rich Schwartz says similar drives at Yale have attracted 6,500 potential donors since Mandi’s death and there have been 30 matches. The family has been able to meet some of the donors and recipients and Rick and Carol call it “a special feeling.”

Registering for the cause

As a Blues beatwriter who has covered Jaden since the day he was drafted, I have felt a closeness to this story. I spoke with the Schwartzes about Mandi’s fight just hours after the draft, traveled with the team to Yale and even bought a Bulldogs sweatshirt, and then watched in 2015 when Jaden recorded a hat-trick against Dallas on the fourth anniversary of his sister’s death.

So as I planned to write this story, I thought to myself: Why not register?

I didn’t know what type of procedure was required to donate bone marrow, so I went to Google. It turns out there are two ways: peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC), which is non-surgical, and an actual marrow transplant operation. The PBSC can take a minimum of eight hours to complete, and the transplant can require travel. Both come with side effects and can take weeks to recover from.

I’ll admit that I was a bit squeamish after reading that but understood that even if I registered, the chance of being selected is one in 430, and you can change your mind up until a week or so before the donation.

I made up my mind to do it, and after watching Jaden score a goal that left the Blues with a 3-1 lead over the Wild after two periods, headed for the concourse area where the drive was being conducted.

There I met Denise Mosley, who is a community engagement representative for Be The Match, and she helped calm any trepidation that I had by introducing me to several donors and recipients and nurses on hand.

“To have them here and to share their story makes people more comfortable,” Mosley said. “All it takes is one more person to join that could save someone’s life.”

A few forms to fill out, four swabs of my mouth and I was out in 15 minutes, plenty of time to return to the pressbox and see Jaden score his second goal of the game and team-leading 13th of the season to help the Blues win 6-3.

I left the rink feeling good about what I had done, but also thinking, “What are the chances?”

A life saved

That’s also what Michael Hellrich, 38, of Columbia, Ill., thought when he registered at a bone marrow drive held in Mandi’s honor prior to a Blues’ game on March 28, 2013. The season-ticket holder and his wife Becky were expecting their first child, and after seeing a promotion for the event, Hellrich signed up.

“She was seven months pregnant,” Hellrich said. “The year before that, I don’t know if I would have felt the same. But when you see these kids with cancer and now you’re about to have one of your own, I really just wanted to help. There might be one person in the world who is a match and you want to be that person. You’d want somebody else to do it for your kid if you were in that same position.”

Like me, Hellrich had done his homework and knew that if called, the actual bone marrow donation process could be rigorous. But he wasn’t thinking about that when he walked away from the registry table.

“I was just thinking, ‘Go get a beer!’” he said.

Four years and many Blues games later, Hellrich’s notification came last August. That child he and wife Becky were expecting, well, her name is Adelaide and she was now 4. He had just picked her up from daycare and the two were eating McDonalds when he heard a beep on his phone.

“I got this suspicious email,” Hellrich said. “It said, ‘You are a potential match’ … and it said that it was pretty high importance and they needed my response immediately. The first thing I thought was, ‘This is spam.’ But for about an hour, I was doing research about it on my phone and it was legit.”

Hellrich quickly texted his wife.

“I was like, ‘Hey, I think I’m a match for somebody and they’re asking me to donate bone marrow,” he said. “To be honest, I was kind of 50-50 at that point. Now I’ve got a kid, a wife, I’ve never been under anesthesia before, never had surgery, it’s a risk. It’s a very, very small risk, but it’s a risk.

“Then my wife texted back about a half-hour later and said, ‘You know what, I think that’s really cool.’ She didn’t say it’s something you should do. She just said it’s very cool. But that’s all I needed. I just needed that extra 0.1 percent to send me over. I was firmly planted in ‘I want to help.’

After confirming his interest, Hellrich was asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and travel to a local lab in Waterloo, Ill., for blood work. The results were returned and they indicated Hellrich was “a perfect 10 out of 10 match for this person,” he said.

Hellrich flew to Washington, D.C., for the first of two trips. The first was for a physical and then after returning home, he went back to D.C. for the actual donation in early October. Although a reported 80 percent of people in Hellrich’s position are allowed to donate using the less-evasive PBSC, he was asked to undergo the surgical operation in which the marrow is physically extracted.

According to Be The Match, “Doctors use needles to withdraw liquid marrow (where the body’s blood-forming cells are made) from both sides of the back of your pelvic bone. After donation, your liquid marrow is transported to the patient’s location for transplant.”

“It was tender for a while,” Hellrich said. “You waddle around, like you slipped on ice. I’m a wuss, but it wasn’t a big deal for me. I would imagine that’s how the hockey players feel every day.”

After a two-day stay-over in D.C., Hellrich returned home and remained there for another three to five days. He says that he felt “really good” after two weeks and was 100 percent about one month after the operation.

“I don’t want anyone to have a false sense of it’s not going to be something that takes a little bit of time and a little bit of will-power to get through,” Hellrich said. “But I would do it in a heartbeat again.

“It’s kind of cliché to say, ‘One person doesn’t make a difference.’ But you could be one person’s only chance at living. My donor is a teenager, and if I wouldn’t have come along, they may not be able to go to college. They should be thinking about those things, not about having cancer.”

Hellrich can’t meet the recipient of his bone marrow for at least a year after the procedure, and even after a year, both parties have to consent. But in the meantime, his family, including Becky and Adelaide, spent Saturday morning back at Scottrade Center, meeting Rick and Carol Schwartz.

“I went for the handshake with Rick and he went in for the hug and I was like, ‘Alright, this is what we’re doing,’ so it was cool,” Hellrich said. “After that, I was all-in on the hugs, so I gave Carol a hug.”

Actually, after the choice Hellrich made to donate, Carol Schwartz didn’t give him a choice on their greeting.

“I’d like to hug everybody that signs up,” Carol Schwartz said. “I just know what the family on the other end would do and that would be they would give them the biggest hug of their lives. There’s nothing more great a person can give.”

“What a nice, young gentleman,” Rick Schwartz said. “For him to do what he did is very special. Going through the bone marrow versus (PBSC), he went through a bit. But he knew what he was doing, he was saving a teenager’s life, and as he said, he would do it again.”

Jaden, who preferred not to be interviewed for this story, was not present when his parents thanked Hellrich for his good deed. Carol Schwartz said that her son has a difficult time discussing Mandi’s memory.

“They were very close, and I know to be hockey players, they couldn’t be together 24-7 like brothers and sisters would like to be,” she said. “I think he’s always a little sad that they didn’t have more time together, but he also knows in his heart that they both kept busy lives and that’s the way that Mandi would’ve wanted it. She was very proud of him. Just like we live for her, I think he takes his energy and puts it on the ice because that’s the game she loved most. I know it’s hard, but that’s his way of giving back to her.”

Hellrich attended the Blues’ game Saturday night, mingling with the Fox Sports Midwest crew, including Hall of Famer Bernie Federko and Scott Warmann. He did a TV interview with Warmann on set, discussing his donation.

Scott Warmann (left) with Michael Hellrich.

“I’ve never expected it to get to this,” Hellrich said. “I’m a relatively humble person. I never thought I was super special, but I really do think this is a special thing that you can do. I’m doing this because I want to get the word out. The drive for all of this was Mandi. It didn’t work out for Mandi, but it might for the next Mandi — anybody that has a blood disorder that bone marrow can cure.”

I hope one day, however long it takes, to receive the same email as Hellrich.

“Like he said, he joined thinking that he would never match anybody,” said Mosley, the representative from Be The Match. “Then for him to get that call four years later, to think that he could donate for a teenager and possibly save her life … he’s given that child hope, that family hope, friends hope. It really is a miracle, the whole thing.”

To learn more about bone marrow donation and register to be a donor, visit BeTheMatch.org.