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USA Hockey Foundation Grant Helps West Michigan Special Hockey Association Grow

09/17/2014, 1:00pm MDT
By Greg Bates - Special to USAHockey.com

Jean Laxton is hoping the West Michigan Special Hockey Association (WMSHA) continues to grow.

It’s on the right track, and a $2,000 grant from The USA Hockey Foundation will go a long way toward the association reaching its goals.

Laxton founded the WMSHA two years ago in Grand Rapids, Mich. There was some open ice time at the Patterson Ice Arena, so she had an idea to try to get children and young adults with developmental disabilities involved in hockey.

“This was something that was always near and dear to my heart,” said Laxton, who is the general manager of the Grand Rapids Amateur Hockey Association (GRAHA), the parent organization for the WMSHA. “My degree prior to getting into hockey as a volunteer over 20 years ago was in psychology and human services, so I’ve always had a soft spot for kids with disabilities, and I worked in a group home for disabled adults for three years.”

Laxton has really gotten the program going with the assistance of Charlie Keider, who recently moved to Grand Rapids and started helping in May. Keider learned a great deal about running a special needs hockey organization from his time working with the Detroit MORC Stars, a program that is very similar to WMSHA.

The mission of WMSHA is to offer an amateur level hockey program for children and young adults with Down syndrome, autism or any other developmental disability. WMSHA is open to any player over the age of 5, male or female, who is physically able to play but would be unable to participate in any other organized program due to a developmental disability.

The WMSHA is in its early stages of existence and is drafting its own bylaws to become a stand-alone organization from GRAHA. Since the WMSHA is working on getting approved as a non-profit, the organizers don’t want the athletes to be responsible for paying for ice time at the Patterson Ice Arena or for equipment. Donations and grants have become a critical means to keep the organization going in the right direction. Along with the $2,000 from The USA Hockey Foundation, the WMSHA received a OneGoal grant from the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association.

“Equipment and ice time always seems to add up,” Keider said. “To be able to offer that to parents as a freebie basically that we’re giving you ice time, we’re giving you equipment is big. … $2,000 in some people’s minds isn’t a lot, but it goes a long way for us.”

With The USA Hockey Foundation grant money, the WMSHA will be able to pay the applications fees involved with getting non-profit status and buy equipment, including helmets, cones and possibly jerseys. Laxton has purchased a number of helmets to keep the players safe and protected on the ice. Also, the organization bought some walkers as skate aids because a lot of players aren’t able to skate freely.

The WMSHA has a good relationship with the Patterson Ice Arena, so the players in the WMSHA are able to use the rink’s skates for free during practice.

“It’s very important,” Laxton said about the grant money. “Every little bit helps. We’re appreciative of anything that we can get to assist to be able to continue to be able to put this on for the kids.”

Ready for the Season

The new season for the WMSHA gets under way Sept. 24, and the athletes will get an hour of ice time once per week.

In the past, the age of players has ranged from 4 to 27. Laxton is expecting a similar pattern this season. She is hoping around a dozen players will participate in the program.

“We have a wide range of abilities, some that can skate and some that are really struggling to even get around on the walker, but we have to start somewhere,” Laxton said. “We’re happy to take anybody that walks in.”

Keider will be running the on-ice instruction and has other volunteer coaches helping out. However, he’d also like player assistants who can help each skater understand what the coaches are teaching.

If practices go well, Keider would like to play some games and eventually have the team compete in tournaments.

“The goal is to make it a full team and then possibly its own league where we have a West Michigan Special Hockey League, and it’s not just one team, it’s multiple leagues for the west Michigan region,” Keider said. “I think that’s a reasonable goal.”

The team is nicknamed the Patriots, and the players are excited to get on the ice. Keider spoke with a player in the offseason who is 18 years old and aged out of the traditional youth organizations. However, he’ll get a shot to play with the Patriots.

“His first comment to me was, ‘Maybe we can get practice jerseys with our logo on it,’” Keider said. “He’s really excited to have his own team.”

That wouldn’t be possible without grants.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

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Olympians Recall Silver Medal Quest in 1952

09/18/2014, 3:30pm MDT
By Mark Burns

Jim Sedin and Don Whiston are 60-plus years removed from their time with the 1952 United States Olympic Ice Hockey Team, a group that won the silver medal in Oslo, Norway. Both men are now in their 80s, and while some memories fade with age, the vivid ones remain.

Sedin remembers scoring the tying goal against Canada in the team’s final round-robin contest. With no knockout stage in those days of Olympic competition, his equalizer secured the silver for Team USA.

As for Whiston, the pomp-and-circumstance commencement of the Olympics still stands out in his mind.

“The opening parade was exciting,” Whiston recalls. “There’s no question about that.”

A former netminder at Brown University, Whiston remembers the U.S. Olympic Committee budgeting roughly $13,000 to cover the team’s expenses in the Olympic village. The sum would have left more than a few bills unpaid, so over the course of three months prior to the Olympic Games, the team traveled throughout Europe, playing 50-plus games to fund their trip with gate receipts.

When the Olympics began, Whiston played in the team’s first game against host Norway, and it’s a memory that lingers with the 87-year-old.

“You can imagine what that was like,” he said. “Standing on the ice and hearing the Star Bangled Banner was enough to give you goosebumps. I think the only time I was more excited was when my children were born.”

Growing up in New England, Whiston didn’t try playing between the pipes until his junior year of high school when he transferred from a Catholic school to a public school.

“I could skate like mad, though,” Whiston says of his time as a player.

His father and uncle had both played goaltender – and a future son would eventually play at Harvard University – so it was only fitting that Whiston continued in net. He might be best known for being the first college netminder to don a facemask.

“I guess I had the genes. The position came very easily to me,” said Whiston, who eventually worked in investment banking for 40 years following the Olympics.

The recent Massachusetts Hockey Hall of Fame inductee doesn’t play much anymore but stays connected to the game by following his young grandson who plays in Colorado. He’ll also be releasing a book soon, focused on his Olympic experience overseas. Even after shoulder- and hip- replacement surgeries and two major back operations, Whiston still works out every day with his two personal trainers and makes time for a weekly appointment with a masseuse.

Like Whiston, Sedin also endured hip surgery, about three months ago, which now results in regular physical therapy sessions.

After participating in the Olympic Games, Sedin contemplated juggling hockey and graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but after more deliberation, he opted for the California Institute of Technology instead.

“I thought that, ‘God, if I go out and start playing semi-pro hockey or professional hockey and try to go graduate school at MIT, I’m not going to make it.’ So I decided to go to Cal Tech,” said Sedin, who concentrated his time in business management and investments in the 1980s after an engineering career.

Pick-up hockey lasted until about 35, followed by a 10-year hiatus. Then came Sedin’s yearly participation in the Snoopy’s Senior World Hockey Tournament, an annual event created by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schultz for players 40 and up. The 84-year-old Sedin finally stopped playing six years ago, but attempted a comeback on the ice last winter. Despite a strong passion for the game, sometimes the body can’t do what it once did, as the current Sun Valley, Idaho, resident discovered.

“It was just too discouraging,” Sedin said. “I just couldn’t do what I thought I should have been able to do. I may be done now.”

And while the curtain may finally be closing on his hockey-playing days, Sedin, like Whiston, can look back proudly on an epic career highlighted by silver in Oslo and a lifetime of great memories.

 

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