AMAZING CODY’S LATEST FEAT
Young Ocean Grove schoolboy who has shrugged off life’s adversities is now gearing up for his second consecutive inline hockey national championships
Ocean Grove schoolboy Cody Hodgkinson is getting ready to write another extraordinary chapter in what already is a remarkable young life story. Having overcome an aggressive cancer that would eventually take the sight in his left eye and leave him with profound hearing loss, the 12-year-old will this week suit up for the Inline Hockey Australia National Championships for the second time.
OCEAN Grove schoolboy Cody Hodgkinson is getting ready to write another extraordinary chapter in what has already been a remarkable young life story.
Having overcome an aggressive cancer that would eventually take the sight in his left eye and leave him with profound hearing loss, the 12year-old will this week suit up for the Inline Hockey Australia National Championships for the second time.
But having represented Victoria at under-9 level in 2018, at this year’s national titles in the South Australian town of Gawler, 50km north of Adelaide, Cody will be suiting up for New South Wales, after being chosen by the Victorian committee to assist the New South Wales association field a junior team for the first time.
Cody is among a host of Geelong juniors selected for the championships, meaning at some stage he will be playing against some of his best friends.
Not that he’s fazed by the prospect. He says he’s most looking forward to representing New South Wales as a team and playing against some of his friends.
“I’ve played against a lot of them before,” Cody said.
It was in August 2009 that doctors discovered Cody had retinoblastoma, a rare aggressive tumour growing in the back of his left eye.
Some of the cancer cells escaped the primary eye tumour by the time treatment began, making their way through the bloodstream and lodging in Cody’s bone marrow.
Cody now suffers from severe to profound hearing loss in the high frequencies, a result of the chemotherapy treatment he underwent. But the treatment also impacted him in other ways, affecting his legs and leaving him unable to run fast.
But four years ago he found a way around that — skates.
Cody was invited by Very Special Kids and the Canadian Club of Victoria to try ice skating at Docklands in Melbourne.
His mum, Ami, said she pushed him around for about 30 seconds “and then he just got up and skated off”.
“Then we watched out first ever ice hockey match. Cody looked at it and went ‘I want to do that’,” she said.
Ice-skating rinks being non-existent around Geelong, Ms Hodgkinson found the next best thing — the Rollerway roller skating rink in Newtown. They went there, a coach put a hockey stick in his hand “and he hasn’t looked back”.
Kelli-Jayne Finn, another coach who has been working with Cody for the past 18 months, said he was an “absolutely phenomenal” player, given his medical history.
Finn said hand-eye co-ordination was “definitely” his best attribute “and he doesn’t give up, he’s just 100 per cent the whole time”.
Cody plays two games at Rollerway on Monday nights, is about to move into goalie — “the smallest goalie you’ve ever seen” — when division two competition starts on Wednesdays next term, has more inline training Thursday nights and two hours’ ice hockey training at IceHQ in Reservoir on Saturdays ahead of another chance to represent Victoria in an international pee wee ice hockey tournament there in November.
Ms Hodgkinson says this year might be Cody’s last year in ice hockey because he also surfs, has gotten into tennis at Ocean Grove Tennis Club “in a big way” and also loves golf.
“He does a Happy Gilmore,” she said. “He doesn’t have the finesse but he certainly gets the distance.”
Part of the appeal of inline hockey for someone like Cody is that, unlike ice hockey, it’s non-contact. Ms Hodgkinson said the biggest challenge for him is to know when to come off the rink, which is why referees will wear a FM transmitter around their neck in tournaments. When they speak it is picked up by Cody’s hearing aids.
“I kind of like it because I’ve always been a slow runner but when I get out on the rink I’m faster. Scoring’s fun, playing defence — everything, basically,” Cody said.
“I’m pretty good at defence … some people are born to be forwards, some people can do both. I’m one of those people who can do both.”
But there is also a special bond among the players and the wider inline hockey community. Ms Hodgkinson says Cody has “found his tribe”, while Luke Bennett, who will coach Cody and the New South Wales team at the nationals, talks of a small but very accepting community filled with “kids with disabilities and their little imperfections, their little niches, that don’t fit in and are accepted”.
Once e Cody is suit- ed up, with his gloves on, helmet and face mask in place ce and stick in hand, you would not know he has any physical hysical limitations. He may be smaller than han some of the other players ayers his age but the only real concession he has had to make e is he has to play left-handed in order to keep the puck on the right side of his body and in his field of vision.
Bennett said what Cody had achieved on the rink was “absolutely fantastic”.
“When you’re out on the rink, spatial awareness and concentration are key and have to be there with the best,” Bennett said.
“You couldn’t ask any more of him.
“Cody is going to be one of those kids trying to bring the game back to New South Wales.”