{"id":937022,"date":"2026-10-18T00:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T00:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/937022\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T00:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T00:34:09","slug":"young-islanders-fan-battling-cancer-joins-schaefer-for-pregame-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/937022\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Islanders fan battling cancer joins Schaefer for pregame interview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lila is currently battling cancer and met the young defenseman during a commercial shoot for Hyundai.<\/p>\n<p>The adorable fan gave a wave to the camera as Schaefer sang her praises.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s the best, so I got to meet her. She\u2019s so cute,\u201d Schaefer told the panel. \u201cShe was such a sweetheart. Let\u2019s me give her hugs. I\u2019m a big hugger, so she let me give her hugs, so that\u2019s a deal breaker for me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s awesome. She\u2019s battling something that my mom obviously battled and it\u2019s not fair for her being so young, but she\u2019s tough, she\u2019s strong and she\u2019s got this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In February 2024, Schaefer\u2019s mother, Jennifer, died after battling breast cancer. The 19-year-old has since honored her memory by participating in various initiatives to support young children battling the disease.<\/p>\n<p>A special family room named the Jennifer Schaefer Child Support Center is set to soon open at the Cohen Children\u2019s Medical Center on Long Island. The young defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/topic\/nhl-awards\/matthew-schaefer-honors-mom-with-hospital-partnership\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced the partnership in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lila is currently battling cancer and met the young defenseman during a commercial shoot for Hyundai. The adorable&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-937022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}