The hockey player Brian Hamilton kept shifting his eyes to the back of his neck.
Mr. Hamilton, an assistant equipment manager, had a mole. It was about two centimeters in length and had a red-brown color, which was a sign of a cancer mole.
Maybe he already knew? Why was the mole still there? She concluded that Mr. Hamilton didn't know.
At the N.H.L. game in Seattle, Ms. Popovici told her parents that she needed to tell him.
Ms. Popovici waited for the game to end and typed a message on her phone. She put her phone against the plexiglass after she drew Mr. Hamilton's attention.
There is a mole on the back of your neck. There was a message with the words "mole," "cancer" and "doctor" in bright red.
Mr. Hamilton rubbed the back of his neck and kept walking after he looked at the message.
Ms. Popovici regretted the message and thought it was inappropriate to bring it up.
After the game, Mr. Hamilton asked his partner if she could see the mole. She could. The doctor was asked if it was worrisome. It was. He waited for the results of the biopsy to see if the fan sitting behind the bench was correct.
Ms. Popovici saved his life.
At a news conference on Saturday, Mr. Hamilton said that she had taken him out of a slow fire. If I ignored that for four to five years, I wouldn't be here.
The doctors told him that it was a type of skin cancer that could be easily removed and treated.
The success of the treatment or the cure for melanoma depends on the stage of the disease, and the sooner you find something, the better it is.
The doctor told Mr. Hamilton that he would cure him of cancer in the same phone call.
Mr. Hamilton asked the franchise to help him find the woman he described as a hero.
Mr. Hamilton wrote a letter that was posted on the team's account on Saturday that said: "To this woman I am trying to find, you changed my life, and now I want to find you to say thank you so much!" I don't know who you are or where you come from.
It took less than three hours to find Ms. Popovici, who had been sleeping at her home in Washington.
She missed calls from her mother and woke up to texts. Ms. Nelson said she was shocked.
Ms. Popovici was invited by both teams to meet Mr. Hamilton at the game on Saturday.
He had just finished speaking to the media. He told reporters that his mom wanted her to know that she loved her.
He repeated the message to Ms. Popovici in person.
She told him that it was the sweetest thing when he talked about his mom.
Both teams presented a scholarship to Ms. Popovici for medical school expenses.
She said that some people are saying that it is not going to be a drop in the bucket. I am so grateful.
She was in the same seat where she spotted the mole. She thought that everything had gone well that day, including the future medical student sitting close enough to the bench to see the equipment manager who was not wearing a jacket large enough to cover the mole on his neck.
The entire experience has been very rare. I will just enjoy it.
