Blackhawk Andrew Shaw has the ultimate hockey mom – Chicago Tribune

At 6, Andrew Shaw received his first stitches — right above his eye after crashing into a table during a wrestling match.

It was the first of countless times he was sewn back together.

The conversation on the way to the hospital went like this on repeat:

“I don’t want to go,” Andrew said.

“Well, you have to, so we’re going,” his mother, Darlene Shaw, replied matter of factly.

With three boys born within three years of each other — all of whom played hockey — and a daughter who was a figure skater, the Shaw family was mostly numb to the routine of bumps and bruises and scrapes. Darlene learned early that worrying wouldn’t solve much.

“There’s no sense,” she said recently over the phone from the family’s hometown of Belleville, Ontario. “Those are the little things, right?”

Darlene has a story for almost every scar Andrew collected through the years. And if she ever panicked during an injury, she never let her kids see it.

Not even now as Andrew has become a black-and-blue fan favorite as a winger with Blackhawks, who are off this Mother’s Day weekend after sweeping the Wild in their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.

Perhaps the ultimate hockey mom, Darlene admitted the time she had to reveal her own illness to her children proved the most difficult of her life.

On Oct. 18, 2012, Darlene was diagnosed with breast cancer. Within the week she told her children and underwent surgery.

“It wasn’t even (doctors) telling me,” she said. “The hardest part was telling the kids and thinking how they would react. You don’t want your kids to worry about you.”

Darlene was fortunate: She said she was not told of an irregularity after a regular checkup, but the tumor had not metastasized. She avoided chemotherapy and radiation, instead taking medication and undergoing reconstructive surgery last summer.

Doctors are optimistic about her progress.

Andrew said her battle is inspiring.

“It just shows the type of woman she is,” he said. “She’s strong-willed. She’s never going to give up on anything. I think I have part of that from her.”