Woolwich scores spot in provincial league
Sledge hockey squad to face off against other Ontario teams, Buffalo
— Winning a faceoff is tough. Just ask Joshua Chambers.
The 14-year-old sledge hockey draw man from Elmira will fill you in.
“It’s really hard,” said Chambers, rolling his eyes. “But I’m trying to get better at it.”
So even with two sticks and a doubleblade sled at your command, you need a solid game plan for when the ref releases that vulcanized rubber. Chambers sure has one.
When he parks his sled along the puckdrop dot, he slides his hand up the shaft of his right-hand stick. How high up? Almost to metal point at the top that helps propel him and his balance-challenged legs around the ice at Jim McLeod Arena.
“Closer to the pick of the stick,” said the fourth-year centre for the Woolwich Sledge Hockey junior Thrashers. “So I have more strength when I bring it back.”
Works for Chambers, who wears No. 28 for his fave NHLer Claude Giroux.
He won his first draw, lining up against a Windsor Ice Bullets rival, on Saturday afternoon. Chambers overpowered his Windsor faceoff foe, Just like coaches Keith Metzger, Clifton Cope and Mamie Sealey-Baker might have drawn it up.
“You just have to go really fast,” Chambers said.
It was a big game for the Thrashers, a team of 14 or so sledge hockey competitors ranging in age from 10-17. It didn’t matter they lost 3-0. It was their first league game. Ever. After years together learning the sport and playing some tournaments, they were ready to enter a provincial league division featuring Windsor, Hamilton, London and Buffalo.
The historic opening faceoff on Saturday? Dustin Hoag took that draw for Woolwich.
The 11-year-old Conestogo youngster with a touch of cerebral palsy, won it too. But he didn’t take the same approach as his teammate Chambers.
“I have a different secret strategy,” Hoag, No. 94, whispered before Saturday’s game.
You see. Hoag holds the stick low, down by the blade. Shhh. Don’t tell Windsor.
“If they win it, I can take it from them more easily.
“Since my hand is lower, I can just pop it from them.”
On the opening draw, that’s exactly what happened. The fifthyear Thrasher played a little sledhockey possum, then pounced, pushing the puck back to his wingers.
Beside him, 13-year-old Michael Papaioannou has a handle on the back of his sled and was pushed toward the puck by mom Melissa, the president of Woolwich Sledge Hockey. Papaioannou, wearing his Sidney Crosby No. 87, just adores his sledge hockey games despite the genetic disorder that spasms his body. With a stick taped to his right hand, he can fling the puck around with force and mom steers him into the action.
But games, league or otherwise, are only a slice of the sledge hockey experience.
“A lot of these kids don’t get to be part of a team and get that feeling coming out of the dressing room together, going to pizza parties,” Melissa said. “Seeing these kids, how they’ve grown up together, the connections they’ve made, it’s fantastic.”
The next league game for the Thrashers is at Windsor on Remembrance Day.
So they’ve got some time to work on their goal scoring and practice their faceoff prowess. It’s OK to jump the gun a little in sledge hockey. This isn’t the NHL. A referee has never kicked Chambers out of the faceoff circle.
“They don’t do that in sledge hockey,” Chambers said.
“I don’t understand why they do that in the NHL. I don’t understand it.”