Victory on the Ice

By Jon Bateman

When I was four years old I was chosen as a poster child for a provincial telethon aimed at raising money for Albertans with disabilities. For a solid week, a local reporter in the small Alberta town of High River followed me around, snapping pictures of my every move and capturing my wide-eyed innocence of the world around me. One of the results was a photo essay in our local paper that included a picture of me looking up in wonderment at a person clutching a hockey stick that was just outside my grasp. The caption read, "He’ll never play hockey."

That image stuck with me as I grew older and made the transition into the life of a student at Mount Royal College. As a child, I had memorized statistics, collected over 7,000 hockey cards and become a resident expert on all things related to the sport, but never believed that I could actually play the game I loved. For me, the logical choice had been to become a sports broadcaster, and so I spent my teenage years working at a local radio station and writing weekly columns in our small-town newspaper.

Then one night I saw something on CBC television in the wee hours of the morning that changed my life. It was just after the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, that I saw an Olympic sport of a different kind being played on the ice. The game was sledge hockey and, much to my own amazement, what I saw on the television screen that night was what I’d always been led to believe was impossible. There they were, all the members of the Canadian Paralympic sledge hockey team, doing warm-up laps on an international ice surface, using small aluminum sleds that looked oddly like toboggans on skate blades. They propelled themselves around the rink with their arms from a seated position, digging small picks into the ice surface from the opposite end of a sawed-off hockey stick which was flipped over to handle and shoot the puck. I was shocked but incredibly excited as I sprang up from the couch and launched my Internet connection to research this new sport.

I soon discovered that this was a game I could participate in, and that there was a local team that played two hours a fortnight at a rink in northeast Calgary. It wasn’t much ice time, but for a young man who had never been on the ice before, it was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.

As I arrived at the Stew Hendry Arena that Saturday night, I realized what those two hours really meant. The game is a liberating exodus from wheelchair to the pure speed and intensity of a Canadian hockey rink. It’s a chance for each player to go out and leave his or her mark on the ice. The aim for these athletes isn’t to gain attention or fanfare, it isn’t to showcase their special abilities. It’s simply to play a game for which they all share the same passion and enthusiasm. For these players, the memories of days spent as spectators by the wall during elementary school dodge ball games quickly fade as the pure competition of the game takes hold -- and they battle for rebound and charge the net.

I was 21 and more than five years older than any of my teammates, and I was about to fulfil a lifelong dream. I strapped myself into the sled, gripped my mittens around the shortened hockey sticks, and pushed myself out onto the ice for the first time.

The feeling that followed was both euphoric and empowering, and though there wasn’t a single fan in the stands to cheer the event, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a question anymore of whether or not I could play hockey, but a question of how far my abilities could take me.

The first thing I did when I reached the ice was to skate as fast as I could directly into the boards behind the net. As the boards shook and my upper body adjusted to the shock of bouncing off the hard wood, I heard that familiar sound and remembered what it was that I loved about this game. It was the intensity. I went through the night with blisters forming on my fingers, my shoulders aching and my back throbbing, but nothing could’ve wiped the smile off my face.

By the end of practice, I painfully made my way to the boards and took note of my new teammates. All of them used wheelchairs while I do not, even though we all had spina bifida, and all of them were several years younger than me. Immediately I was a leader on this team -- not because of my hockey abilities, which were sadly lacking, but because of my age and level of independence as a person with a disability living on his own in the big city. The envy I had for the hockey abilities of my teammates was reciprocated in their desire to gain the independence that I had, and it was clear to me that we all had something to learn from each other in this experience, both on and off the ice.

Two days after that first scrimmage, I was phoned by a member of the executive committee and asked to become co-coach of the team that I had just joined. I’d been on the ice only once, my entire team could skate circles around me, and I was being asked to coach them. The entire idea was and still is very overwhelming, but I also knew that this was a team of very eager hockey players. What I didn’t know in terms of skill they could teach me, and so I accepted the position. After all, there really wasn’t anyone else available to take the job.

Before I knew it I was on a plane bound for Windsor, Ontario, where I participated in Canada’s first annual sledge hockey coaching conference. It was there that I discovered how developed the sport was in some provinces and how underdeveloped it was in others. Ontario and British Columbia were both running leagues while Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and parts of the Maritimes had only been able to manage a few small city clubs that couldn’t even play against each other because of the long travel distances and low budgets.

I was hit with a barrage of coaching drills that covered everything from power skating to body checking and smart passing. All of this at a time when my wrist shot moved about as quickly as a stone chugging down a sheet of ice at the local curling rink. I was learning the intricacies of outlet passes and neutral zone coverage before I even learned to skate.

I came home from that conference with a new respect and understanding for all coaches of any sport. My task now was somehow to implement the knowledge I’d learned at our biweekly scrimmages and help the players on my team, as well as myself, pick up the skills of the game. I had met many of the coaching staff from Edmonton at the conference and, after a few evenings of blowing smoke about the grandeur of our skilled hockey squads, we determined that a game would be played in Calgary to establish the top squad in the province.

As I returned to the rink to inform the team of our first-ever match against our rivals to the north, I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew. I mean, Edmonton was a team coached by a national Olympic team member and I had the nerve to send my little squad into a battle with a coach who couldn’t skate, much less construct a good line change. My only solace came from knowing that we would be playing the Edmonton B’ squad and not its top team. For all we knew though, its B’ squad could be the modern-day version of the 1972 Russian Red Army.

Although a little anxious, overall our team seemed excited about playing a real team. The subsequent two months of practices were spent trying to come up with some form of strategy to our game. We worked on poorly constructed passing drills, skated endless laps and did our best to improve our shooting, but by the end of the practices we weren’t exactly optimistic.

At last the night arrived, and we began to suit up for our historic first game. During the warm-ups, we watched as a small trickle of friends and family arrived at the mostly empty arena. We also scouted the opposition. We were outnumbered badly, almost two to one, yet we were hopeful because our team was older and larger. Hopes quickly faded, however, when their coach suited up and took to the ice. His name was Dave Eamor, a member of the 1998 Paralympic silver medalist team -- and he was playing for the other side.

I took a final lap around the net, looking back at our poor unsuspecting goaltender, and silently prayed that our team would emerge with our lives, if nothing else. At last the puck was dropped and the game commenced. Huge cheers rang out from both benches and I began the process of sorting out our line combinations while also determining where I would play, should I be foolish enough to actually step on the ice. My concentration was abruptly broken by the flash of red from the goal light behind our net as I realized that Dave Eamor had begun his evening of destruction with a goal just 37 seconds into the game. By the time three minutes had elapsed we were down by two. The hits to my pride far outweighed the checks I was receiving in the corner, but I was determined that we were a team that would not quit.

Fortunately my hopes were realized as I watched Dave Eamor skate over the bench and shoot me a "my-work-is-done-here" look before removing his helmet and settling in behind the bench. Was he hurt, or was he just taking it easy on us? Not wanting to know the answer, I shrugged off the question and took to the ice. Our team responded quickly and within five minutes we had pulled even with our competitors. By the end of the first period we skated off with a 5-3 lead and I was almost giddy.

The second period offered more excitement as we battled to a standstill and only managed to score a goal each, to go off at the break with a 6-4 lead. My hopes were rising that all my boasting would be vindicated. Only 20 minutes to go -- surely we could hold on for that long.

At the start of the third period we didn’t let up on the opposition, managing to score two more quick goals and ease into an 8-4 lead. Only 10 minutes left and we were up by four goals. I wonder if they’ll want to play us next year? And then it happened. Dave Eamor looked menacingly over at our bench and slapped on his helmet. There was a collective gasp on the bench as he took to the ice. Within seven minutes, Dave Eamor had turned our defence inside out and scored three straight goals to pull his team to within one. I rallied the troops with powerful speeches on the benefits of team defence and exhorted them that at all costs we must prevail. Three minutes to play... we could win this one, couldn’t we? We dug in and clogged the front of the net. It wasn’t pretty but it seemed effective as the seconds slowly ticked down.

Dave Eamor was getting frustrated and I couldn’t help but smile. Thirty seconds to play and still no tying goal. Eamor sprang in from the side and made his way to the hash marks in one last-ditch effort. I sprawled in a futile attempt to block a shot that was nowhere near my sled, closing my eyes as I went down. The next sound I heard was music to my ears: the clang of the puck hitting glass. Eamor had shot it over the net. We had won! My pride had emerged intact from this experience -- and no one was more surprised than me!

A year has passed since I played in that first game, and even though my coaching skills are still lacking, our numbers have grown and our abilities have improved, making the on-ice battles fiercely competitive. The games are rougher, the puck moves faster and the players are showing more confidence with each practice. So much, in fact, that the old battle of Alberta has been rekindled with two matches this year. It may not be a taxing schedule but it is more than our players have seen in the past. And, judging from the intensity of that first game, perhaps it is all we can handle for now.

For more information on sledge hockey in Canada and about how you can participate, visit the Sledge Hockey of Canada website, www.shoc.ca.

(Jon Bateman is a freelance writer living in Calgary, Alberta.)