9-year-old leukemia survivor signs with Charlottetown Islanders

The Charlottetown Islanders are hoping to give their Quebec Major Junior Hockey team a boost this season by signing nine-year-old Callum Thomson to an honorary contract.

The Islanders first met Thompson in February.

Thompson, who is from Belfast in southeast P.E.I., was in Halifax for cancer treatments, and tookan evening off to watch the Islanders play the Mooseheads. He visited the team in the locker room before and after the Islanders' 5-2 win.

"You can tell he's a hockey player, he fit in automatically with our team," Islanders coach and general manager Jim Hulton said on CBC News: Compass. "We thought a guy that's this tough, this resilient better be an Islander."

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Thompson was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia on New Year's Day, after going to hospital for a nose bleed.

He went into remission in February and earlier this month a bone marrow biopsy showed no sign of leukemia. In October he will be back at the IWK for more follow up tests.

We're luck enough and fortunate enough to play game and have some fun doing it but this is the real world. Islanders coach and GM Jim Hulton

"For our group it kind of slapped home reality. We're luck enough and fortunate enough to play game and have some fun doing it but this is the real world," Hulton said.

"To get the good news when we came back this summer that the bill of health was clean and moving in the right direction was really uplifting."

Thompson, now in Grade 4 at Belfast School, signed his contract Monday. On Wednesday the public is invited to a news conference to announce the signing. Afterward, he will get a tour of the dressing room and will skate with the team.

"He'll be a member of our team for the entire season," Hulton said.

On Friday at the Eastlink Centre, Thompson will wear the captain's C for a pre-game skate before the puck officially drops for the 2016/17 season.

Thompson said his favourite player on the Islanders is Daniel Sprong, a Pittsburgh Penguins prospect who is out for the first few months of the hockey season recovering from shoulder surgery.

Hulton said he hopes Sprong returns to the team this year because, pointing to Thompson, "now we have a defenceman to get him the puck."

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