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Mason signed with Buffalo this past summer with 64 professional fights on his resume. The 30-year-old has made a career out of answering the bell in defense of teammates.
His toughest fight began in pregame warmups on a November night in Henderson, Nevada.
Mason was preparing to play a game for the Silver Knights, the AHL affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights. He slipped on a puck, causing discomfort in his knee. He ignored the pain and played that night against the Tucson Roadrunners. He played again the following day and fought 6-foot-9 Tucson enforcer Curtis Douglas.
Mason finally relented to the pain and went in for an MRI on Monday, Nov. 27, 2023.
“That day,” he says, “was probably one of the worst of my life.”
Mason went for an MRI on his knee that morning. He was home with Clarity when he received a call from the team medical staff.
Can you come back? We need to do another scan.
Mason and Clarity feared a serious injury to his knee. He returned for an X-ray, after which he was told to meet with the Golden Knights’ team doctor. The urgency – at this point, it was past 6 p.m. – stirred thoughts of a potential surgery.
Neither Mason nor Clarity expected the answer that awaited them.
Your bone marrow is not normal and we think it could be lymphoma.
The doctor told Mason that, because lymphoma can weaken bones, it was unlikely he would ever play hockey again.
Stunned and in denial, Mason and Clarity drove at 9 p.m. to downtown Vegas for bloodwork, their future suddenly uncertain.
“It was just surreal,” Clarity recalled. “I feel like you can’t even take yourself back to that moment because you’re just trying to survive and get through it.”
That initial round of tests was followed by a small biopsy in early December on Mason’s shin, which only complicated the matter. The results were benign, leaving doctors to wonder if the issue was an autoimmune disease rather than cancer.
Mason returned to the ice on Dec. 22, less than a month after being told he would never play again. He finished out the season with Henderson, resuming his role as defenseman and enforcer while fans, media and opponents remained unaware of the lingering battle in the back of his mind: He was sick, but without symptoms and without answers.
Further scans upon the conclusion of Henderson’s season revealed the condition had worsened significantly. Mason was sent to a cancer center in California for an extensive biopsy, where doctors drilled into his femur and removed three samples of bone marrow.
This time, finally, the initial diagnosis was confirmed: B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Clarity fought back tears when she met her husband after the surgery. Mason, still disoriented from the anesthesia, smiled and laughed.