As the rest of his teammates celebrated winning the Turner Cup in the locker room, captain Guy Dupuis kept looking outside the door at the fans every few minutes. He'd raise his hand and smile and encourage the screaming, but he was also looking for someone he'd made a promise to for a more meaningful celebration.

On April 27, 1965, 17-year-old Mike Nichols ran onto the Memorial Coliseum ice to celebrate the Turner Cup championship with his heroes. He remembers it distinctly - in part because he received a stick from Komets forward Teddy Wright, which he still has.

The one thing he didn't do that night was drink from the Turner Cup.

A lifelong hockey fan who walked to McMillen Park as a kid to watch the Komets practice, Nichols was a computer programmer at North American Van Lines in the fall of 1984 when he was being treated for a compressed vertebrae. Doctors discovered Nichols had multiple myeloma, a blood and bone cancer that is considered incurable, though it sometimes goes into remission.

Doctors told Nichols he might have two or three years to live, but he kept going, holding off the disease again in 1993 and 2004. He missed drinking from the Turner Cup in 1993 and in 2003, too, and when the cancer came back in February 2007 along his lower spine, “They didn't need to tell me what the problem was,” he said. “I knew.”

Now 60, Nichols has been taking chemotherapy since last summer with the hope of another remission.

“When you're given a two- or three-year notice, and it's 23 years later, you have to think things have gone in my direction,” he said. “I've been able to turn this into a marathon. I knew early on with everything about the disease that there was no cure for it. A marathon is the best I could hope for and I got it.”

Part of his “therapy” was going to Komets practices every day when the team is at McMillen, and part of what has sustained him is his friendship with Komets defenseman Guy Dupuis. Dupuis is sustained by the friendship every bit as much.

“When I'm at practice, I'm not always motivated to have a hard practice, and it's really tough on Monday and Tuesday mornings,” Dupuis said. “And then I look up in the stands and see Mike. I'm battling on the ice to push myself and during the games to try to get an edge on my opposition, but it's only a minute compared to Mike who is battling every single day for his life. When I see him in the stands, it definitely gives me a boost to push to the next level.”

Dupuis had extra motivation, wanting to see Nichols drink from the championship cup. The Komets captain was crushed last spring when the team lost to Rockford in the semifinals because he feared Nichols was running out of time.

“How many more fights can he go on and win?” Dupuis said. “Maybe all of them, but one of these days he's not going to be able to fight it off.”

Every two or three days throughout the season, Dupuis would call Nichols, who would remind the defenseman that this was the year they were going to drink from the cup. Then the Komets fell behind 3-1 in this year's Turner Cup Finals.

“There were a couple of times during the national anthems that I wanted the game so badly, so deeply, to be able to grant Mike's wish to drink from the cup and celebrate with us that I got pretty emotional,” Dupuis said.

Dupuis wrote “Mike” on the inside of his wrists in pen for Game 6 in Port Huron, but the sweat washed that away after a period, so in Game 7 he used a marker. That didn't make it through the third period, but Dupuis did, assisting on the cup-clinching goal in the third overtime.

An hour after the Komets won the game and the cup, Dupuis at last spotted Nichols and his wife Vicki and invited them into the locker room. Finally, Nichols got to fulfill his wish and drink deeply from the cup. As the celebration continued into the early morning, Dupuis joked that a wide-grinning Nichols looked as invigorated as 19-year-old Komets rookie Justin Hodgman.

“I have found that the battle with cancer is fought on two fronts - physical and mental,” Nichols said. “On the mental side, I had to surround myself with positive people. Guy's enthusiasm, work ethic, discipline and can-do attitude extends from his hockey to life itself. For me to survive mentally, I need those qualities and to draw that energy from Guy.”

Athletes inspire others all the time, but sometimes others inspire them.

“Winning for the team is great, but having the dedication for helping a person get his wish accomplished goes a lot deeper,” Dupuis said.