FEATURE: Blackhawks Honor Six-Year-Old Luca as Player for a Day

Six-year-old Luca Bear Bish is as passionate as most Blackhawks fans experiencing the highs and lows of watching his favorite team and sticking through when times might be tough. Luca knows tough first-hand, and his family credits his fighting and upbeat personality for helping him in more ways than just watching his favorite team.
On Friday, Luca, along with his parents and brother, Enzo, will all celebrate a recent remission diagnosis after his three-and-a-half-year fight with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia by experiencing the day in the life of a Blackhawks player. The best way that his father Ben and mother Natalia could think of to commemorate the occasion was to plan a game to watch his favorite hockey team in-person for the first time.
"It's definitely a celebration of a kid who is extremely tenacious and I honestly can't think of a better place to take him then to go see the Blackhawks play," Ben said. "He sticks with his team no matter what and to go and watch a sport that requires such tenacity and love a sport and love a team. There's a lot of synergy when it comes to that and it's just kind of fits who he is."

But Luca is in for much more than just watching Friday night's game against the Arizona Coyotes.
The Blackhawks, in partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, will honor Luca with the experience of a lifetime watching morning skate, and touring the locker room, along several other unique surprises in store throughout the day, including signing an honorary one-day contract with his favorite team before taking in the action like a VIP later in the evening.
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GALLERY: Luca Bear Bish - Blackhawk for A Day
Although, his parents labeled him as the most tenacious and extroverted child they have ever met, Luca couldn't hold back his excitement when he learned he'd be attending his first Blackhawks game, and rushed to hang up all his new Blackhawks items around the house.
Natalia described the 'butterflies' that Luca felt and wondered what kind of questions he might be able to ask his favorite players.
"A little bit as nerves, like good [and excited] nerves," Ben said. "And he was like, 'Are they going to be in the locker room when I'm down there?' And we're like, 'I don't know, maybe? I don't know. I'm sure you can ask them whatever you want to ask them.'"
While growing up in San Diego, Calif., Luca's fandom for the Blackhawks started after Ben's father came to visit from Chicago and turned on a hockey game. Ever since that moment, he was hooked.
Ben expressed how impressed he is with how engaged his son becomes when he watches any type of sport for a child his age. When he sees his favorite player, Patrick Kane, shoot the puck, he grabs his mini hockey sticks and tries to mimic every move he witnessed by the veteran forward.
"He has little mini sticks and he plays in the house, so we're going to have to get new floors here after a little while," Ben joked.

In March of 2019, the Bish family took a trip to Jamaica, where Luca became sick and started to experience difficulties with his breathing. They flew straight to Florida, near Natalia's family, and had Luca visit a doctor to see what he was suffering from. While at the Children's Hospital in Miami, their lives forever changed.
After his three-plus year battle with cancer, Luca is now in remission with no cancer cells detected in his scans since August. Although he still needs to see doctors for monthly lab work, Natalia and Ben are starting to learn to live at a different pace as parents.
"That was kind of our life, if you will, for those three and a half years and now [we're] kind of like learning to breathe again," Natalia said. "If he gets a little sick, we don't have to rush, we don't have to call [the doctor] or go to the ER. If anything, maybe Tylenol could [make him feel better]."
Their number one goal for Luca was to have him still live his life as a kid, even through these difficult moments. Despite his diagnosis, they feel no one would truly know that their son had cancer by the way he maintained his positive personality throughout everything.
One of the ways he did so was by dressing as his favorite athletes ranging from a variety of sports. Before every procedure, Luca donned different jerseys from Blackhawks to Bulls and even replicating his favorite tennis player, Rafael Nadal. He even played the respective sports in the hospital hallway with the nurses on his floor.
"No one would have a clue that he went through what he went through," Ben said. "His personality and how he's handled it has been the one constant throughout the whole thing. No matter the ups and downs that we've dealt with and seen, I mean, his attitude has always been the same."
As they enter the United Center on Friday morning and spend the day in the city, Natalia said they can finally relax, and take in a new and exciting moment.
"We kind of hit remission and in the end, it was like you kind of like 'I didn't know what to do with myself' kind of thing," Natalie said. "So I feel like this is kind of like, 'Ok, we're ok.' This is exciting, and we get to be excited about this."