Double Duty – A Welland Ontario Chiropractor

It doesn’t necessarily follow once the end is reached that the means to achieve
that goal have to end. Pat Maddalana’s busy, but fulfilling, life is testament
to that. When the 30-year-old Welland native is
not treating patients at his chiropractic clinic and a comprehensive wellness
centre in St. Catharines,
he’s usually in the air flying to his next game as a member of the New York
Titans of the National Lacrosse League.

Early in his 10-year
career in the NLL the Brock University graduate counted on the salary he earned
as a professional athlete to augment student loans for the four-year program at
New York Chiropractic College.

“The money is pretty good
for a weekend job,” says Maddalena, who usually leaves his home in Grand Island. N.Y., on
Friday afternoon and returns on Sunday.

After first hanging out
his shingle in Buffalo,
where he made his pro lacrosse debut with the Bandits, Maddalena is now in his
second year operating the Accelerated Health & Wellness Centre, a
“patient-oriented” facility that in addition to chiropractic care offers laser
and massage therapy as well as acupuncture, custom orthotics and physiotherapy.

His expanding practice
and his work with the Ontario Hockey League’s Niagara IceDogs and the Niagara
Spears of the Ontario Varsity Football League has not gone unnoticed. In
November, the St. Catharines-Thorold Chamber of Commerce honoured the Notre
Dame graduate as its Young Entrepreneur of the Year for 2008.

Despite this recognition
as a rising all-star in the business community, this established all-star in
professional lacrosse isn’t about to hang up his stick and call it a career in
the National Lacrosse League.

His burning desire to
excel at Canada’s national
sport remains as fiery as it was when he first started playing organized
lacrosse in Pelham, when Welland didn’t have
minor lacrosse, or in 2002, when he was hailed as Brock University’s
male athlete of the year.

“I still love the game, I
still love playing.”

Maddalena, who also saw
action with the Columbus Landsharks and the now-defunct Arizona Sting after
leaving the Bandits, also would like to complete a little unfinished business
before he retires. He would like to play on at least one championship team
before he joins the ranks of spectator on a full-time basis.

As far as the prolific
goal scorer is concerned, a professional athlete’s resume of accomplishments on
the playing field is incomplete without a title or two.

“How you
define a great athlete from a good athlete is the great athlete has won a
championship.”

Championing
the Concerns of His Patients

But one only needs to
hear NLL all-star Pat Maddalena talk for a few minutes to appreciate that pro
lacrosse is his weekend job and only during the season. Dr. Pat Maddalena is
far more interested these days in championing the concerns of his patients and
working with them to prescribe the best treatment regimen.

“This is a team approach,
too: we put the needs of the patient first and do what’s right for them,” he
says of his Accelerated Health & Treatment Centre.

Fittingly enough, the
full-range facility is located just north of Jack Gatecliff Arena on Geneva
Street and in the same strip plaza as Gatter’s Pro Shop, a sporting goods store
that specializes in – what else? – lacrosse gear.

Maddalena first began
considering chiropractic as a career when he was 10 and accompanied his mother to
the treatments she was receiving in hopes of easing severe headaches.

“Naturally for a kid, it
seemed scary at first, but it worked. Mom started feeling better.”

The encounter that
cemented Maddalena’s commitment to become a chiropractor occurred after he
injured his clavicle playing minor hockey and was told it would take six weeks
to heal. Eager to return to the lineup, he sought treatment from a
chiropractor.

“I was back on the ice in
two weeks.”

Sometimes the line
separating his weekday work in the clinic and his weekend work on the floor at
such arenas as Madison
Square Gardens
can become blurred. Teammates have come up to Maddalena seeking advice and, in
some cases, on-the-spot adjustments, but he doesn’t want to cross that line and
become more than a teammate unless it’s in a professional capacity.

“I keep my two jobs
separate, so one can be a break from the other.”

Still, having a great
deal of knowledge about how the body functions best, from the skeletal and
muscular structure out, can’t help but make Pat Maddalena the New York Titan a
better lacrosse player.

“There’s no doubt it has
made me a better athlete, because I know how to train,” says Maddalena, whose
bread-and-butter move as a scorer in lacrosse is a quick snap of the wrist.

Maddalena and Jamie, his
wife of three years, live in Grand
Island, N.Y., with
their two-year-old daughter Jaylee. The couple first met after the Buffalo
Bandits played a home game.

“I
think we lost in overtime, but I don’t remember the score,” he recalls with a
laugh.