COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - It came on all of a sudden, leaving Jack Wandmacher frightened and more than a little confused.
 
The junior forward on the Saint John's hockey team had never dealt with any health concerns worse than the broken nose he suffered as a seventh grader. Then, one night in July of 2024, he began breaking out in rashes, later followed by swelling in his joints.
 
"It happened out of the blue," he recalled. "It was late, at like 11:30 p.m., and I started getting these weird rashes. Then everything swelled up and it was hard to walk.
 
"It was terrifying initially because I had no idea what was going on."
 
The diagnosis eventually rendered over the course of three different hospital visits was IgA Vasculitis – an abnormal immune response that causes inflammation in the small blood vessels. Doctors determined Wandmacher's case was a rare form, making it difficult to determine a cause or long-term future prognosis.
 
"Apparently, mine is a unicorn case," he said. "There's not a lot of research overall.
 
"They have no idea what caused it and I'll probably never find out. It could have been an environmental thing or something I was around at work. It could have been something I ate or something in my genetics. They just don't know."
 
All Wandmacher did know was that instead of training for his sophomore season with the Johnnies, he was forced to rest and begin a medication regimen he continues on to this day.
 
"It was frustrating," said Wandmacher, who had appeared in all 25 games for SJU as a freshman, recording seven goals and seven assists for a team-best 14 points.
 
"There was so much I wanted to be doing. It was the summer of my 21st birthday and I was supposed to be having the time of my life. All those plans got derailed. The bright spot was that I got to be really close to my parents. I'd been away at juniors for two years, then at Saint John's. So it had been a while since I'd lived at home. 
 
"They were super supportive and that played a huge role in my recovery," he said. "I couldn't have gotten through all this without them."
 
But Wandmacher's travails were not over. Just a month later, he experienced a stabbing pain in his chest and immediately went to the hospital where it was discovered he had an embolism brought on by a blood clot in his right lung.
 
That required additional hospitalization, yet through it all, hockey was never far from his mind – a bright light at the end of a long and trying tunnel.
 
"The whole time, I kept thinking about how I needed to get through all this so I could get back on the ice," he said. "The competitive part of my personality kicked in. There was no way I wasn't going to be playing hockey again."
 
Wandmacher returned to Collegeville for the start of classes that fall, but he was still on blood thinners and not ready to resume physical activity when hockey practice began that September.
 
Still, he made sure he was there with his teammates.
 
"I couldn't do much, but I tried to be a coach on the ice," he said. "The biggest thing was just being able to see my best friends every day. The whole summer, I'd been pretty much alone. But my teammates were texting me and their support meant a lot. So getting back to school and being able to be around those guys again was a big boost for me."
 
Slowly but surely, Wandmacher started regaining his strength. He was finally able to resume practicing in December and returned to the ice last January, eventually seeing action in 16 games and finishing the season second on his team in assists with 11. 
 
His performance earned him the SJU athletic department's 2024-25 Novacare Comeback Player of the Year award.
 
"He had a really tough summer, but for most hockey players you meet at this level, the sport is pretty important to them," SJU head coach Doug Schueller said. "They've been doing this a long time, and it's nearly impossible to even think about giving it up. So he had to battle, but I always knew he was going to find his way through everything that was going on and get back on the ice. 
 
"It took some time, but that's exactly what he did."
 
Wandmacher has continued his success this season. Through SJU's first five games, he leads the team in scoring with seven points (three goals and four assists).
 
"He's just a smart hockey player with a knack for being in the right place at the right time," said Schueller, whose team (2-1-2, 1-0-1 MIAC) takes on St. Olaf in a home-and-home series at 7 p.m. Friday (Nov. 21) in Northfield and 7 p.m. Saturday at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St. Cloud.
 
"He finds his way into the scoresheet almost every game, whether it's an assist or a goal. He's not the most physical player, but he competes hard and he's really smart with the puck and knows where he needs to be on the ice."
 
Wandmacher credits much of his success to playing on a line with close friends and roommates Jackson Bisson and Chris Kernan, both of whom are juniors as well.
 
"We ride to and from the rink together every day and we have a lot of the same classes too," Wandmacher said. "I'm around those guys a lot and that familiarity helps. I know where they're going to be and what they're going to do at all times. There's just a really good chemistry there."
 
Of course, another key is that Wandmacher is healthy. And while there's always the chance his condition could flare up again, he's grateful to be at full strength for now.
 
"I'm just happy to be out there making an impact," said Wandmacher, a global business leadership major. "I try to keep all the other stuff out of my mind. All my focus is on hockey and how I'm playing at the moment."