Researchers working on treatments and cures for long COVID are closely watching newly signed Winnipeg Jets forward Jonathan Toews’s healing journey — and his return to the NHL after two years away.
“I am thrilled that he is making a return and a comeback,” said Dr. Kieran Quinn, an internal medicine and palliative care physician at Sinai Health in Toronto. He teaches and does research at the University of Toronto, looking for treatments to help long COVID patients feel better. Quinn is also a hockey fan who has followed Toews’s career for years.
“It’s really just great to see somebody in the prime of their life come back to the sport that they love. It’s also, I think, really important for the hundreds of thousands or possibly even millions of Canadians who are living with long COVID to see that there is hope. People can come back and people can get better from this illness.”
Toews has had about as close to a dream career in hockey as you can get.
The third overall draft pick in 2006, named Chicago’s captain at just 20 years old, Winnipeg-born Toews led the team to three Stanley Cups, racking up a pair of Olympic gold medals and a trophy case full of individual awards along the way.
Toews has been named one of the 100 greatest NHL players. He’s a surefire, first-ballot Hockey Hall of Famer.
But in December 2020, Toews announced he was sitting out indefinitely with an undisclosed illness. He later revealed it was chronic inflammatory response syndrome, connected with a COVID-19 infection early in 2020.
“My focus is to give myself the time and space to fully heal and enjoy life to the fullest once again. Along the way I have met several people who have struggled with health issues pertaining to long COVID, chronic immune response syndrome, and other similar cases that are quite complex,” he posted on social media.
Toews missed the NHL’s entire pandemic-shortened 2021 season, fighting symptoms of long COVID, including fatigue and inflammation.
He returned to the Hawks for another two seasons. But then in August 2023, he stepped away from the game to get his health under control.
His treatments included a five-week Ayurveda detox program in India last fall.
“I think when you try enough different things and then they don’t work, it’s pretty frustrating,” he told reporters at a news conference in Winnipeg on Friday. “And I just decided, I’m like, why not give this a shot?… I was really happy that I did.”
The man nicknamed “Captain Serious” for his intensity hasn’t played professional hockey for two years, but he’ll be on the ice this fall as a Winnipeg Jet after signing a one-year contract for the 2025-26 season.
Return of a hometown hero
“One of the most decorated hockey players in Manitoba history is coming home, and that’s an exciting thing,” Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff said Friday, before presenting Toews with a No. 19 Winnipeg Jets jersey.
Toews, who was born in Winnipeg and played youth hockey in the city, has a sportsplex named in his honour in the St. Vital neighbourhood where he grew up.
The 37-year-old said he loved his time in Chicago, but will always be a Winnipegger.
“Obviously, I haven’t played in a couple of years. Really, really feeling blessed to be able to have the chance to play the game of hockey again at this level, but let alone for the Winnipeg Jets,” he said.
Quinn doesn’t know the details of Toews’s medical condition, but says his symptoms are typical.
“In long COVID, we’ve learned that there can be reservoirs in the body where the SARS-CoV-2 virus — or the virus that causes COVID-19 — fragments of it or whole pieces of it can be stored in various organs of our body, like the gut.
“And that might be the biotoxin that’s giving Jonathan chronic inflammation, that’s leading to all of these different symptoms like fatigue, like brain fog, sore joints,” he said.
“Long COVID still exists. There are still millions of Canadians suffering with it. And if Jonathan Toews can serve as a beacon of hope for all of us, I think that’s great.”
According to Statistics Canada, by June 2023, about 12 per cent of the total adult population reported experiencing long-term symptoms, defined as the presence of symptoms three or more months after a COVID-19 infection that could not be explained by anything else. This represents 3.5 million Canadians, and nearly one in five Canadian adults who had been infected at least once.
When it comes to alternative treatments, Quinn says physicians and patients need to keep an open mind and try things they think might help.
“There is some evidence to support the biological connection between the treatments [Toews] received and long COVID,” he said.
Realistic expectations
Quinn hopes the Jets will make sure Toews’s return to work will be gradual so he can avoid a debilitating crash.
“You have to keep an eye on your energy levels, your heart rate, your resting heart rate. And those can be indicators that you have an impending crash, if this is the case for Jonathan. And so I think his trainers and his physicians and the team will be supportive and help him get back to playing at such an elite level.”
Toews — and Jets fans — will also need to make sure the pressure doesn’t push him to do more than his body can handle, Quinn said.
Dr. Angela M. Cheung agrees. She’s a clinician scientist at Toronto’s University Health Network, where she is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, leading a $20-million Canadian Institutes of Health Research project testing new treatments, and ideally a cure, for long COVID.
“We are all looking for that Holy Grail,” she said. “We have seen people 100 per cent recovered … but for those who are still suffering, we don’t really have a cure.”
And while there are long COVID clinics across the country, they are “few and far in between for the sheer number of patients,” Cheung said, adding part of her work is to teach family physicians and other specialists how to diagnose and treat patients.
Her advice for Toews?
“We don’t suggest going from zero to 100 per cent. We do sort of suggest doing it a bit at a time. And just make sure that you don’t pass your threshold. And everyone’s threshold is a little bit different,” she said, adding she will be watching to see how Toews does in a gruelling 82-game NHL regular season.
“Go slow and steady. And I would also say, you know, we always think of having a pot of energy.… Stress will take energy from that pot as well.”
‘That’s what healing is … trying to find balance’
Toews says he feels great but is trying to be honest and realistic about the challenges facing him.
“There’s still that little sliver of thought in there that’s just, like, ‘Why did this have to happen?’ or ‘could it have been different?’
“And at the end of the day, you just have to accept that it is what it is. You learn your lessons and you try and get better from it as a person and as a player on the ice.”
He’s ready to give his body — and the NHL — another try.
“It’s easy to play the victim card,” he said.
“I just try to keep that mindset, or at least that attitude, that it’s not happening to me, it’s happening for me.… I think when you have a health issue, that’s what healing is — just kind of taking a look at your life and trying to find balance within it all.”