Sunday, November 18, 2001
Living life on the sledge
Two years after losing a leg, Paul Rosen has discovered a new way to play
By STEVE NYCZYK -- Special to the Toronto Sun
Paul Rosen has a lightning-fast glove.
He has cat-quick reflexes and a calm presence in the crease. He has
everything an NHL goaltender has, except one thing -- his right leg.
|
|---|
|
The Canadian Olympic sledge hockey team practices in Toronto in November 2001. Veteran player, Lou Mulvihill sitting in the requisite double-bladed sled, gives 17-year-old Billy Bridges a little jostle. -- Hugh Wesley, Toronto Sun
|
The Canadian Paralympic goalie, Rosen, was a 15-year-old Midget AAA hockey
player skating along in a tournament in 1975 when he caught a rut in the ice.
He fell and snapped his leg in 14 places.
For 24 years thereafter Rosen had countless surgeries on the leg.
Nothing seemed to help. Standing in a German airport in 1997, Rosen's leg
broke again -- for the last time. Doctors operated 18 times within a two-year
span.
When Rosen went for knee replacement surgery in 1999, doctors discovered
that the knee had "nothing left".
There was an infection in the leg and there was nothing more they could do
to save it.
"I knew I was going to die if I didn't have it amputated," Rosen said.
After the amputation Rosen considered his athletic career over.
Until he was introduced to sledge hockey, a sport designed for disabled
athletes that involves sitting on a double-bladed sled with their legs in
front of them and pushing themselves using two short sticks.
"I'd never even heard of it," Rosen said. "I had no clue about any disabled
sports."
But Rosen's friend Ron Legace was a sledge hockey player for the provincial
team and played on club teams in Thornhill, where they both lived.
He got Rosen out to play for the first time.
"Six months into playing he turned around and said to me, 'I think you're
good enough to play for Team Canada,'" said Rosen.
Rosen went to the tryout, made the team, and is now a key part of Canada's
sledge hockey team, which is ranked first in the world going into the 2002
Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City.
He describes making the squad as, "the greatest thrill of my life."
After a lifetime as an able-bodied goalie, sledge hockey wasn't an easy
adjustment for Rosen. It took him awhile to get used playing the new, lower
angles, but saving the puck wasn't his biggest challenge.
"Being so low I get hit in the face a lot on shots that used to hit my
stomach," he said.
Rosen's coach, Tom Goodings, feels that his goalie's experience as an
able-bodied netminder has helped in his new game.
"His knowledge of the crease and angles was the main factor in our
selection," Goodings said.
Rosen has taken what could have been a great tragedy and turned it into a
positive.
"I have the opportunity to play a sport at an elite level and have gotten
to travel the world," he said.
His teammate and captain Todd Nicholson, agrees with Rosen's sentiment.
"A lot of players have taken what has happened (to them) and turned into a
dream come true."
2002 Games Paralympics Coverage
