Kelley Wilson dies of cancer

South African women’s national team player Kelley Wilson passed away at the age of 36.

“Thank you for your unrelenting dedication to the game, in everything,” the South African Ice Hockey Association wrote in a Facebook post.

The Port Elizabeth Ice Hockey Club defender, who became a South African national team player at the age of 30, was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months after winning gold at the 2020 Women’s Ice Hockey World Series III. Just when he felt better than ever in his life.

After feeling a lump in her breast and when her mother died of breast cancer when Kelley Wilson was 14, she wasn’t in a good mood. She was diagnosed with early stage triple negative breast cancer and it was aggressive. “He said that treating this cancer is complicated but not impossible. I held on to those words with all the strength I had at that point,” he wrote in his story in April of this year.

Wilson underwent chemotherapy, but several months later the outlook worsened when lung metastases were discovered. That’s when he went public with his story to ask for help to fund expensive treatment for a gene mutation that was rejected by medical aid. Of the target of 600,000 rand, nearly 460,000 rand ($27,000) was raised.

Despite her health condition, Wilson returned to the South African women’s national team in the first tournament since the pandemic. Earlier in May of this year, she played in Group B of the 2022 IIHF Women’s Ice Hockey World Series in Zagreb, Croatia, and received a lot of moral support not only from her teammates but also from other teams who helped spread the word and put up stickers. their helmets.

“We are so inspired by her courage and determination to compete at the highest level for her country,” Australian women’s national team captain Rylie Ellis told The Inner Sanctum Sports. “Hockey is played all over the world, but it’s a small community, and we wanted to show our support for Kelley and the South African team by wearing stickers on our helmets as a show of solidarity. Breast cancer affects all of us in some way in our lives, and we felt it was important to recognize Kelley’s battle and show her that we are behind her.