from Michael Russo of the Star Tribune,

Jake Dowell shows up to the Wild locker room every day and sits in a far corner. As he joins his teammates and gets ready for practice, you’d never know the incredible weight he shoulders.

“Sometimes … you get choked up by the thought of what he’s going through,” coach Mike Yeo said.

Dowell’s father and only brother are dying. They’re both in the final stages of Huntington’s disease, a neurological disorder that over the course of a decade or more debilitates a person physically and cognitively until they die.

There is a 50-50 chance that Dowell, 28, a Wild checker who has played 156 NHL games, has inherited the same gene. In the next year or two, Dowell plans to go with his wife, Carly, and his champion of a mother, Vicki, to have a blood test and learn what his future holds.

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