Blind Hockey: More than just a developing sport

This article was written by Mira Posluns, who is part of the Professional Hockey Writers Association x To Hockey With Love Mentorship Program. This program pairs aspiring writers with established members of the association across North America to create opportunities for marginalized people that do not traditionally get published on larger platforms covering hockey.

To Hockey With Love is a weekly newsletter covering a range of topics in hockey – from the scandals of the week to providing a critical analysis of the sport.

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When Drew Garza lost his sight at 27 years old, he didn’t think he would ever play hockey again. He quit playing the sport that had been part of his life since he was six or seven for years, unaware there was a blind hockey team in his home state until three years later.

While blind hockey was invented in Canada almost 90 years ago, the parasport is still struggling to get noticed, especially in the United States.

“Blind hockey in the States is still in its infancy,” said Garza, who is now USA Hockey’s National Blind Representative and a player for the United States Blind Hockey Team. “We don’t have a true league that’s set up.”

Currently, the USA has two major annual events that blind hockey players compete in, The Disabled Hockey Festival and The Blind Hockey Classic, which bring together players from across the country and the blind hockey community.

For Luke Miller, teammate of Garza’s and fellow Illinois native, these tournaments have been life changing.

“Being in my first organized game ever was just something amazing,” said Miller. “I didn’t know it then, but that was the opening to a whole new chapter and aspect of my life.”

When Miller began playing blind hockey in high school, the sport provided him access to a community of people similar to him that he wouldn’t have known without it.

“Being with this community just widened my perspective so much further than you could possibly imagine,” he said. “We all share some commonality. It has been really special and part of making me who I am and changing what I think of myself.”

Garza also felt impacted by his first engagements with the blind hockey community, remembering a specific feeling of true understanding when he and one of his teammates both ran into the same door.

“We’re all hockey players, but at the end of the day we’re also all blind and visually impaired individuals,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you don’t realize how unique your situation is in your regular group of friends or family and how almost unremarkable your situation is when you get into the blind hockey community.”

However, despite the community that he already has in the sport, Garza believes blind hockey has a long way to go in terms of reaching who it needs to.

“A lot of players, coaches, and people in the community want this to be big now,” said Garza. They want us to have a paralympic team, have a world championship and all this other stuff, and I do too, but the biggest thing with blind hockey is getting the players into the organizations.”

Just like Garza didn’t know about the Chicago Blackhawks Blind Hockey team before he started playing with them, most people eligible to play the parasport aren’t aware of the 23 blind hockey organizations across the United States that are trying to grow from the ground up.

One of those organizations is Philadelphia Blind Hockey, which was founded in early 2022 by Kelsey McGuire, a teacher at Overbrook School for the Blind.

The organization is a non-profit that relies on equipment donations to keep it affordable for the players and volunteers to run practices. Some of its volunteers are players for the Flyers Warriors, a hockey team for military veterans, and players from local Philadelphia high schools.

“It was cool to see our players grow,” said McGuire, who just finished running the team’s first season. “None of them have ever played hockey before or even skated and now we have players that are skating by themselves, which is crazy to me. They’ve grown so much, just in the short amount of time we’ve practiced, but it’s really cool so far.”

McGuire’s roster ranges vastly in age and ability, but it still has its own unique community that aims to create an environment and game that all its players can succeed in.

“Our goal is to allow those who have visual impairments the opportunity to be able to play a sport that they might not typically get to play,” said McGuire. “Blind hockey makes that very accessible because the accommodations and rules are set for them specifically.”

Some of these accommodations include playing with people with similar levels of vision and using a puck that is larger than a regular hockey puck and makes noise so players can recognize when it is near them.

However, despite Philadelphia Blind Hockey’s successes, the organization only has eight players on its regular roster and no other local teams to compete with.

“We’re just literally trying to just spread the word,” said McGuire. “We’re having ‘Try Hockey’ events and trying to get more people coming out, but it’s hard. I feel like people don’t really know that blind hockey is like a thing. Now that our team finally exists, we’re just trying to spread awareness for our program and for visual impairments on social media.”

McGuire has managed to make some impact on social media, reaching parents of visually impaired children and blind adults willing to give the sport a shot, but she and those in the area want Philadelphia’s blind hockey community to be even larger.

“Everyone is wanting it to grow,” said McGuire. “I want to have multiple teams so that we can have joint practices. I know we only have eight players right now, but just allowing them to have that feel of a team and being able to compete against other people would be great.”

Garza is also working at the local level to get this sport off the ground with his foundation, The Dented Puck, which sends blind hockey teams to play against sighted teams in charity games in order to get more eyes on the blind hockey community.

“I think there’s a lot of cool stuff going on in blind hockey and we’re definitely gaining steam and growing,” said Garza. “Hopefully in the near future we won’t be a marginalized group, we’ll be a full-fledged arm of hockey and everyone will kind of know what we’re doing and get the opportunity to see us play.”

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Blind Hockey: More than just a developing sport

More from the PHWA x To Hockey With Love Mentorship Program