Each month, the New York Islanders and Northwell Health are spotlighting two strong and inspiring children battling cancer in continuous support of pediatric cancer patients all season long.
As a 12-year-old boy, an athlete and a twin brother, competitiveness was just second nature to Long Island native, Charlie Macaluso.
When he experienced throat discomfort and was repeatedly taken for strep tests, he insisted that he was fine. However, a small change to his voice and results from a bloodwork test said otherwise.
Charlie was diagnosed with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL) in October 2024. His parents, Matt and Amy Macaluso, quickly took him to the emergency room to begin treatment.
“As parents do, we just went into triage mode,” Amy said. “You just go into mama and papa bear mode and get them to where they need to go.”
Charlie remained positive and brave throughout the battle. He befriended the medical staff at both hospitals he was treated at, and used sports as a topic of comfort and conversation.
“They all just fell in love with him immediately because of his personality,” Amy said. “He was very spirited and tried to keep a really positive outlook.”
Charlie quite literally never allowed sports to leave his side. His passion for lacrosse kept him going, as a sign of comfort and hope.
“Lying there, he was very uncomfortable, and I think he was very nervous,” Amy said. “But he had his lacrosse stick in his hand and kept a really good sense of humor.”
His family, friends, sports teams and community didn’t leave either. Instead, they picked Charlie up and marched through the whole battle right alongside him.
Charlie was responsible for face-off duty in lacrosse, so his role was either FOGO, which stood for “face-off, get off”, or FOSO, which meant “face-off, stay on”. To rally around his love for lacrosse, one of the Macaluso’s close family friends and one of Charlie’s coaches even put together a fundraiser. They created T-shirts that spelled out “FOSO”, which stood for “Fight On Strong One”.
“There was not one family in Cold Spring Harbor that did not have multiple pieces of apparel supporting him,” Amy said. “I have pictures of people all over the world with these FOSO shirts on.”
Charlie remained extremely strong and completed treatment in May 2025 after he underwent a bone marrow transplant. A month later, Charlie and his family were notified that he was cancer free.
This past November, Charlie walked into UBS Arena alongside Islanders forward Cal Ritchie and got his own personalized locker as part of the New York Islanders’ Hockey Fights Cancer (HFC) game.
“Just giving them an outlet to be unconditional, fun kids and forgetting about the disease for a minute or a night is so powerful,” Amy said.
Charlie also received some HFC merchandise, and it didn’t take him long to gear back up for another trip to UBS Arena.
“We went to the LaFontaine retirement game and the first thing he put on was his sweatshirt and hat from [hockey fights] cancer night,” Matt said.
Wherever Charlie’s athletic future takes him, it’s safe to say he's more than a Stanley Cup Champion. He’s a cancer survivor.
