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Brady:
We’ve gone to Pittsburgh for what they call a diversified hockey festival. I’ve gone to St. Louis. I’ve gone to Fort Wayne for a fall classic. I’ve also gone to Chicago.
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. Today, I’m excited to have Brady and Nick from the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey Team. Brady is starting his fourth year on the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey Team, and Nick is one of the managers of the team. Brady is going to tell us about his passion for hockey, how it all started, and how he got started in blind hockey.
And Nick will follow up with more information and details on how you can get involved in Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey. But first, we have a great announcement from SSB, and this is from Maddy, the peer ambassador, talking about a networking event for students and parents where they can learn more about career choices, the job market, and network with other students. And here’s Maddy right now.
Maddy:
Hi, I’m Maddy, and I’m one of SSB’s peer ambassadors. And I’m here to share a special announcement about SSB’s student career networking event. This event is on Saturday, October 5th from 9 a.m. to 3 30 p.m.
There will be a lot of good stuff there for everyone to check out. There will be a job fair-esque situation where there will be blind and low vision volunteers going to be there at their tables to talk to students and let them know a bit about their industry, how they got their job, any tips they have. They will be there for students to network with and to talk with to see what careers they may be interested in. Students can talk to these blind and low vision adults who have gone through it already, know what it takes to get a job, live life independently.
And so it will be really valuable for students and I think everyone will be able to learn a lot.
This is a great event whether you’re a blind student who knows exactly what they want to do and just wants to talk to some blind and low vision adults about how they got their job, like what their job is like, what they needed, you know, what was college like, if that’s something they’re interested in.
Or this event’s also good for students who maybe don’t know what they want to do and are interested in just exploring the different industries that they could become a part of and see what interests them.
The schedule for this event is that from 9 to 12, that’s when the whole job fair, networking, like talking to the various volunteers, kind of the one on one stuff will be going on.
And then from noon to one, there will be pizza lunch. You can talk to your friends and stuff.
Then from one to three, there will be breakout sessions. So from one to three, there will be breakout sessions. And the first session from one to two will be an employer panel. There will be a panel full of people who maybe are in work and recruiting or HR. Students can learn about like how accommodations work in the workplace, how to disclose your disability, what rights you have. This could be very beneficial to everyone. Students and parents just to know these are really important things to know.
Whether you’re in the workforce or not currently, these are important things to be educated on.
Then from two to three, there will be a student breakout session as well as a parent breakout session. This is a great opportunity for students to connect as well as parents to connect and learn more about each other and just talking and whatnot.
Overall, this event, it’s a really great opportunity for students to connect with people in the industry, people who are blind and low vision, people who are working currently, other blind students. I mean, you’ll see people there. It’s a great way to get to know some new people, meet some new people, make those connections.
And this also is a great opportunity for parents to learn about what could come in the future and connect with other parents. But it’s really important that us as blind students that we understand that we’re not locked into any certain careers just because we think that maybe there’s only a few things that we can do. That’s really not how it works. You know, we have just as many career options as someone who isn’t blind. So this is a great way and a great event to kind of explore some of those options and just find out what you’re interested in and what you may want to do for your career.
So again, this event will be on Saturday, October 5th from 9am to 3.30pm. The location is at 800 West Broadway Avenue, Minneapolis. This event is for people ages 14 to 24. So if you’re interested and you want to come, you can register. There will be a registration link as well as you can check out the Minnesota State Services for the Blind website.
If you have any questions about anything, you can contact Shane DeSantis. Links are all in the show notes. And now I’m going to hand it over to the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey team.
Jeff:
All right. Thanks, Maddy. Today we got a player and a manager from the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey team. Brady, could you introduce yourself?
Brady:
I’m Brady and the thing I like about Blind Hockey best is you’re playing the sport that I love and just meeting other people across the country.
Jeff:
Brady, how did you get introduced to Blind Hockey?
Brady:
Before I got into Blind Hockey, I was listening to the wild games on the radio. And then once I got interested into those, then we had to do some research of activities I was able to participate in. And once I was a fan of regular hockey, then we all of a sudden found Blind Hockey and I just got interested. Well, not at first, but after a little bit. And then once I got interested, I joined our Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey team in 2021.
Jeff:
Great. Brady, could you describe the details of Blind Hockey to our listeners?
Brady:
Blind Hockey is played with a special puck. It is steel. On the outside, it has ball bearings that make noise on the inside. That way, everyone knows where it’s at on the ice. The net is one foot shorter than the NHL net as far as the height, but it’s the same width across.
For like, if players are doing higher shots in the upper part of the net, and then that way our gold tender has more room to block different shots that are going in the net. With the forwards and defense, those are the same, but with goalies, they have to be completely blind or blindfolded. With levels of blindness, it’s any visual impairment for people that have any visual impairment they can play, like B1 through B4.
Jeff:
Where B1 is totally blind. B2, which is typically your defenseman, would be 5% field of vision, up to 10% field of vision. So, Brady, tell me about how your parents supported your passion for playing Blind Hockey.
Brady:
My dad’s one of the managers on our team, and my mom is the ice scheduler, where she will schedule lots of open ice that we can use for our practices that’s available to SuperRink in Blind. They are totally supportive of what I want to do.
Jeff:
That’s great. Now tell me about what it’s like on the ice, navigating the ice.
Brady:
With people who navigate like the ice, it’s really nice. There’s really nice coaches out there that can help you along, but everyone else, they’re skating on their own, but they can have help from coaches and volunteers if they’re starting or if they just need a little extra description.
Jeff:
Now, I know there’s no checking, but what are some of the rules that you have in Blind Hockey?
Brady:
Now, when you’re able to shoot, you have to have one pass in the offensive zone. Now, it’s one of the rules. There’s a special whistle that will be involved. Like if one pass is made, then a whistle will blow, and then a whistle will blow again. That’s your cue of getting lined up, and then you can shoot the puck in the net.
Jeff:
Now, Brady, you’re becoming a veteran here. How many years have you been playing Blind Hockey?
Brady:
This is going to be my fourth year playing.
Jeff:
And over the years, I know you and the team have traveled quite a bit.
Brady:
We’ve gone to Pittsburgh for what they call a diversified hockey festival, even though it was disabled, where like everyone gets to participate in a tournament in the spring. I’ve gone to St. Louis, for that kind of same setup. I’ve gone to Fort Wayne for a fall classic. I’ve also gone to Chicago for that. And then there’s other places in like Minnesota where we’ve been to TRIA rink at Mariucci. It’s one place we got to skate at. Xcel Energy Center I’ve been to before. There’s TRIA rink. The Roseville Skating Center. We’ve been to a lot of places and we’re hosting the classic. It’s blind and special only that will participate.
Jeff:
The classic, when is that? And when does your Blind Hockey season actually start?
Brady:
November 15th through the 17th are the dates of the Blind Hockey Classic, but September 29th is our first practice at the Super Rink at the National Sports Center in Blaine, Minnesota.
Jeff:
Brady, what advice would you give to someone who is pondering the idea of playing and participating in Blind Hockey?
Brady:
Some advice I would give them is that they’ll get to play the sport they love and they’ll have really nice coaches and volunteers. who can give them that description for like scrimmages and stuff like when to come in off the bench and when to go onto the bench in between like shifts.
Jeff:
Now your dad, Nick, he’s the manager.
Brady:
Yeah, he’s
Jeff:
He’s one of the managers.
Brady:
One of them, yes.
Nick:
Hello.
Jeff:
There he is. Hi, Nick.
Nick:
Hey, hey.
Jeff:
Former Minnesota blind hockey player myself. And you stepped up into the manager’s spot. How’s it going this year?
Nick:
So far so good. Kind of quiet over summer, but we had the ability to do some training camps. We went out to Connecticut, actually.
Brady:
Oh, I was about to mention that. I didn’t even notice.
Nick:
Yeah. So we have lots of great opportunities for fundraising and awareness. We’ll be participating. Our first event for the year will be, the team is actually joining for the foundation Fighting Blindness Vision Walk on Saturday. And that’s going to kind of kick off our season and we’ll start our first practice on the 29th and hit up almost every Sunday all the way to the end of March.
We should typically get two to three Sundays per month. And then then we have a lot of special events mixed in there where we try to get either ice time or times where the team can get together.
So we have events with the wilds, such as split the pots and program sales. And we have fun events like Hockey Without Limits. We have different collaborations we’re doing with other blind hockey clubs. Like we’ll go down to Rockford, Illinois with the Chicago Blind Hockey. They’ve invited us out to Philadelphia this spring. We’re going to be attending the Canadian National Blind Hockey Tournament in Toronto in March. Yeah, lots of great opportunities. Lots of real fun times.
Brady:
Yes.
Jeff:
Wow, that is a lot of opportunities. That’s great.
Nick:
We’ve been really fortunate to have some great charitable organizations help us out and help offset the costs for a lot of our families and players. And so we’re all about helping everybody grow as players and as humans.
Brady:
Yes.
Jeff:
Nick, what advice would you have for parents who are considering getting their child involved? Because I’m sure there’d be a lot of questions.
Nick:
Yeah, you know, people think hockey is a scary, aggressive sport. And it can be, but not so much in blind hockey. We try to use as much safety as we can. There’s no hitting. There’s no penalties. People do run into each other. That’s a part of, you know, visually impaired players on ice. That happens. But we try to make all the safety things possible.
And then as far as commitment as a parent, you know, it’s just like really any sport of any kid, it’s as much as you’re willing to give. We’re all volunteers, you know, so we’re trying to make this better for everyone. So we all kind of give where we can.
I may be a little bit more involved than the average parent because I’m also a vision teacher and an ONM specialist. And we love the wild and we love people. So we’re big advocates. And so we get the word out there, we recruit, we go on podcasts, you know, we travel, we do all those things, but it’s as much as you want to give.
Jeff:
What advice would you give to that person that says, I haven’t skated before, I haven’t played before? Is there room for them?
Nick:
Yeah, I think that’s where a lot of players started. There’s certainly the players that played and then lost their vision over time. And then there’s players who have never played before. And most of the time, as long as there’s not additional physical impairments, you can pick up skating pretty quick.
We have a most of our players maybe use an aid, a skating aid and or in combination with one on one coaching with one of our coaches, not more than one or two practices and they’re typically skating pretty novicely around the rink and then within three, four practices, they’ve got to stick and they’re doing a lot of what all the other players are.
We’ve tried to group kids between ages and abilities. And so there’s really a place for everyone.
Jeff:
What’s it like to see that growth happen? I mean, you’ve been involved for three, four years now to see that growth happen and players coming out from where they start and where they are today.
Nick:
It is really fun. You know, you see a lot of players that are very timid up front and you know, to watch that humility to like understand that, hey, I’m not very good. I can’t skate very well, but hey, there’s others just like me who started out not skating very well and then see them advanced farther and farther and farther.
And for some players, it also builds that self confidence that they can do hard things. We know our players and our athletes can do hard things. They’re literally proof of it when somebody says, I’m sorry, blind hockey. What’s that about? And they’re like, yeah, no, it’s legit. We can do hard things. This is what we’re doing.
Jeff:
Brady, you mentioned, well, actually Nick mentioned that you’re finishing up homework before you got on here. So even though you’re hockey players, you still got to do homework.
Brady:
Yes. And you know what? School is another thing I really, really, really care about. And so, you know, I’m just working on trying to balance both of those things out.
Nick:
Yeah, a majority of our team are school age, but we do have some older players who you’ve played with before.
The one cool thing to understand about a lot of our athletes is they’re so involved with so many things outside of hockey. They’re very good students. They’re very involved in their community, their churches, their philanthropies, they’re multi talented in music, in orchestra. You name it, they’re involved in other visually impaired activities and they are college bound. They are fantastic in all that they do. And they love to share all that talent with other teammates as well.
Jeff:
Another thing I really like that this isn’t just a boys game. This is guys, gales. And I tell you what, some of those girls, they’re pretty good.
Nick:
There’s actually more gales on the team than there is guys.
Jeff:
That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see them graduate and they all have hockey hair.
Nick:
Oh yeah, I think that this year we’re going to try to grow some of that lettuce out.
Brady:
I know, I’ve got some of that already.
Jeff:
Got the flow going.
Brady:
It’s going, yep.
Jeff:
Well, that’s great. What about equipment? I mean, not everyone has equipment. What would you say to the parents that could be expensive out feeding someone for hockey? And what if they don’t like it?
Nick:
Yeah, well, we work with Minnesota Hockey when they have their equipment drives. And so we’ve stockpiled a whole lot of equipment through them and with players who have kind of moved on or families that have had players that have donated.
So we actually have a storage locker full to the brim of equipment. Almost everything that anyone would need we have.
Not everything. I mean, some people may be a little bit more picky on skates and things like that. But for the most part, we have just about everything covered for players. So if they try something and it’s not for them, that’s fine. No harm no foul. Yeah.
Jeff:
Nick, where can people find out more about Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey?
Nick:
Yeah, mnwildblindhockey.com. You can find us on all of the social media platforms. If you can just Google Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey, Minnesota Blind Hockey, you’re going to find us everywhere. I think on Facebook is probably the easiest and that’s just type in Minnesota Blind Hockey. But you can definitely get ahold of all of our contact information on our mnwildblindhockey.com. There’s email links, there’s registration links.
In one way, shape or form, if you do any web search for us, you’ll find us. And that way we can answer any questions, any concerns we can answer really just about everything. Pretty much any question that anyone has had has definitely been asked 10 times over. So we’ve heard it all and we can hopefully answer it all.
Jeff:
That’s great. I remember when we would have a little banquet or something after near the end of the season or something. It was like one big family and one big room, just everyone getting together and sharing everything. Parents, brothers, sisters, you know, you’ve seen them all year long. It’s a really good community.
Brady:
Yeah, that’s one great thing is that we all have this thing in common called visual impairments. So we definitely can get together whether it’s yes, we are celebrating our accomplishments being able to play hockey, but also all the other accomplishments as well. And we have that one common thing that we can share with our vision as well. So it’s really great for the families to get together and the players and they can share all their different trials and tribulations. And what they’ve come across throughout the years. And it’s really great that the community is small but yet big in that they can share information and relationships with people all around the country as well.
Jeff:
So that’s great. Well, Nick Brady, thanks for coming on and we’ll see you on the ice.
Nick:
All right.
Brady:
Thank you.
Nick:
Good job. Thank you.
Jeff:
It’s a great time having Brady on and learning about his passion for hockey and how he fulfilled that dream of playing himself with the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey Team. And Nick, thank you for what you’re doing for the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey and thanks for sharing your advice as well.
So be sure to check out all the show notes, find out all the links to the networking event Maddy introduced in the beginning and find out more about Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey. Thanks for listening.
Jeff:
To find out more about all the programs at State Services for the Blind, contact Shane.DeSantis@state.mn.us. That’s Shane.DeSantis@state.mn.us.
Be sure to contact your state services for the blind, your Voc Rehab and find out what they can do for you. Live, Work, Read, succeed.
I want to thank you for listening and until next time, bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share-
What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities