by Mike Strobel
(Reprinted from "The Toronto Sun," February 11, 2002.)
Slashing skates. Steaming coffees. Screaming kids. An all-Canadian Sunday at McGregor Park arena on Lawrence Avenue East. My neighbor, Jamie Wallace, and his little Scarborough Sabres end their workout on Rink 2.
The mighty Ice Owls suit up in Dressing Room 7. They’re to play the team from Toronto Police 54 Division. The cops are huge. The biggest, barely, is Constable Steve Douglas, 24. He’s 6-foot-6, 295 pounds. Without skates or pads. They call him “Meat.”
But the Ice Owls have no fear. Their goalie, Mario Ros, 45, agrees to face me in a pre-game shootout. He looks like a cross between goalie greats Glenn Hall and Gump Worsley.
“You ready?” I ask, as the two teams warm up around us. “Sure, pal,” says Mario. He probes the air with his stick. “But, where’s the net?”
Aha, I think, this should be easy. Mario is blind. So are most of the Owls. Mario can’t even see shadows. I mean, how hard can it be to score on a blind guy?
Well, Mario stops me four shots out of five. I am no Pavel Bure. But I can see. Then the Ice Owls go out and tie 54 Division 6-6. Forward Adam Hornyak, 20, whose eyesight is blurred, has “Meat” seeing double with a thunderous check. “I decked a cop,” he hoots at the Ice Owls’ bench.
Actually, it’s supposed to be minimum contact. But it’s fast hockey. No white canes here. The guys with partial sight play forward. And, frankly, there’s a couple of 20/20 ringers. I guess they qualify as “relatives of the visually impaired.”
The guys with little or no sight play defense. They flank Mario like guard dogs, heads cocked, waiting. The “puck” is a plastic wheel from a Tonka toy truck. It’s about five inches across, filled with piano pins. It whirs like locusts.
‘Good Flow’
“It’s all about hearing,” Mario tells me later. “Hearing the puck rattle back and forth, hearing other players talking.”
Shift changes are something to see. There’s lots of shouting. Some thumping into the gate, into each other. Defensemen feel their way along the boards until they get to the bench. Those with some sight help those with none.
“Good, quick game,” gasps defenseman Eddie Parenteau, 41, as he comes off. “Good flow. Those guys are fast.”
He catches his breath. “A lot of people hear ‘visually impaired hockey team’ and they think ‘slow.’ They’re always surprised.”
This is the Ice Owls’ 30th year of surprising people. They play Sundays at McGregor Park, inviting various sighted teams. They’re the only blind team in the GTA. They play charity games. For instance, they take on York Regional Police March 10 at 2 p.m. in Sutton to raise money for Big Brothers and the Red Barn Theatre. Tickets are $2.
But the bottom line is fun, says Eddie. He’s team president and a proofreader at CNIB. He’s had 5 percent vision since birth.
A cop swoops down on Mario. The net is regular size, but you’re not supposed to shoot more than three feet off the ice. Makes it hard to hear the Tonka wheel.
Mario and the defense sort of collapse on the officer. “Left!” “Right!” “Left!” they yell, following the sound. Sticks sweep the ice. Mario stacks the pads.
The cop is foiled. Like a bear by a pack of dogs. Even the 54 Division boys pound the boards in admiration.
‘Great Guys’
Eddie helps Jason Caruana, 16, off the ice. It’s Jason’s first season. He lost his sight to glaucoma at age eight. He’s the youngest Owl. The oldest, 72, is away. “They’re great guys,” Jason tells me later, in the dressing room. “They never give up and they’re a good influence. Playing hockey’s always been my dream.”
Across the room, Mario wipes sweat off his brow. He works in investigations for CIBC Visa. “We’re just a bunch of guys who always wanted to play hockey and couldn’t play for a regular team. We have fun and we show people, no matter what, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
That other Mario, the one with Team Canada, couldn’t have said it better. Remember those movie Mighty Ducks? Remember their “quack, quack, quack” cheer? Well, the Ducks had their day. Hoot, hoot, hoot!