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PUTTING THEIR DISABILITI­ES ON ICE

The sport of sled hockey glides into the Fort Myers Skatium

- BY GLENN MILLER Glenn Miller is a freelance writer living in Fort Myers.

The sport of sled hockey glides into the Fort Myers Skatium

Words on the back of T-shirts at a sled hockey event at the Fort Myers Skatium speak volumes: “Put Your Disability on Ice.” Ice hockey is usually considered a sport for athletes on two feet, gliding on skates, crashing into each other and the boards, slapping pucks while screeching to ice-spraying halts in midstride.

That’s not always the case. Athletes don’t have to skim across the ice on skates attached to their feet. Heck, they don’t even need to stand up.

No, that’s evident when athletes compete in sled hockey, a sport for those who are unable to stand and skate. Instead, they sit on sleds to play a sit-down version of hockey. The sport was invented in the early 1960s in a Swedish rehabilita­tion center.

Now, more than half a century later it’s a godsend for athletes such as Monica Quimby, who was able bodied until a 2006 skiing accident in Maine left her paralyzed from the waist down. She found sled hockey and fell in love with the sport.

"When you go into a rink and you get that coolness on your face, it’s just instant happiness,” Quimby says, sitting in the Skatium lobby. “It just flows over you. It’s, ‘I’m here.’ You put your game face on.”

On a Sunday last September, the Skatium in downtown Fort Myers was the site of a Try Sled Hockey for Free event. Anybody of any age and disability could find a sled, grab two sticks, push the sled across the ice and see if they liked it.

Coach Ron Robichaud runs the local league and the Florida Bandits, a statewide team for elite-level players. About 20 people participat­ed in the September event. “Everybody who was on the ice said they’d be back,” Robichaud says.

He doesn’t see sled athletes as disabled. “For an hour and a half they don’t have a disability,” Robichaud explains. “They’re athletes. They’re not disabled. They’re just athletes.”

That’s the way Quimby views herself—as an athlete. Quimby is so talented that she’s earned a spot on the U.S. Women’s Sledge Hockey Team. ( Sledge is what the world outside the U.S. calls sled hockey.)

Quimby may have lost the ability to walk after her accident but she has persevered and triumphed. She earned a degree in molecular biology from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree from Kaplan University. She was named Ms. Wheelchair Maine in 2011.

The accident came on a backflip. “I missed the landing,” Quimby explains. “I broke my hip and shattered my vertebrae.”

But her spirit wasn’t shattered. Quimby tried other sports such as paracanoe and then discovered sled hockey. She was hooked.

“I’m the defenseman,” Quimby says. “I’m the goon. I might be 110 pounds but I pack a mean punch.”

Quimby’s fiance is Marine veteran Jeff Brunelle, who served four combat tours—one in Afghanista­n and three in Iraq. Brunelle is now a sled hockey player. Ask him who is better and he replies very quickly. “She’s on the national team,” he says of his fiance.

Not everybody on the ice at the Skatium during the Try Sled Hockey event is an elite athlete or combat veteran. A 10-year-old boy named Toby Thomas, born with spina bifida, was brought to the rink to try the sport. “He truly is a different kid when he’s involved in sports,” says his mother, Kari Thomas.

She says Toby is intrigued by sled hockey. “He told me he dreamed about it last night,” Thomas says. “He has talked about it for two months. He’s watched every YouTube video he could possibly find on it.”

Chrissy Barlow, 28, was also brought to the rink on this September Sunday to try the sport. “I’m nervous,” she says, sitting on the sideline before going on the rink. Barlow has ADHD and fetal alcohol syndrome. “Chrissy has a fear of ice and cold, so this is huge,” says her mother, April Love. On the ice, though, Barlow is just another skater.

Maybe they’ve lost a leg in war or were injured skiing or were born with a birth defect, but in the end, when they’re on the ice, something transcends what the rest of the world sees. “We’ve all persevered,” Quimby says. “We’ve all been through something. It unites us.”

It’s the minutes on the ice that count, moments when they’re just athletes playing a sport.

“Just another hockey game,” Robichaud says.

For an hour and a half they don’t have a disability. They’re athletes. They’re not disabled. They’re just athletes.” —Coach Ron Robichaud

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 ??  ?? Coach Ron Robichaud (left) pulls a player and his sled onto the ice at the Skatium in Fort Myers. Sled hockey players (top left) are shown in action. Monica Quimby (top right), a member of the U.S. Women's Sledge Hockey Team, helps a young player...
Coach Ron Robichaud (left) pulls a player and his sled onto the ice at the Skatium in Fort Myers. Sled hockey players (top left) are shown in action. Monica Quimby (top right), a member of the U.S. Women's Sledge Hockey Team, helps a young player...

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