Skate expectations

In 1994, a 16-year-old kid in Bettendorf, Iowa, tried to impress his friends by jumping on a moving train. Grabbing the ladder, he lost his grip, slipped and got sucked under the train, watching as the rolling freighter tore off his right leg and left the other hanging by a thread.

Sixteen years later, he’s representing the U.S. in the world’s most competitive athletic games. Even without legs, Andy Yohe, a 31-year-old double amputee who plays defense on the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Blackhawks Sled Hockey Team, is one of the country’s most formidable athletes on ice. While six Blackhawks from the NHL compete in the Vancouver Olympic Games, which kicks off Friday 12, Yohe and 14 other disabled players from across the country quietly, fiercely prepare to represent Team USA in the Paralympic Games (March 13–20).

Following his accident, Yohe spent two years in intensive physical therapy. Prompted by a visit from disabled athletes, Yohe joined a wheelchair basketball team and, seven years later, transitioned to sled hockey. Today he balances a day job selling electronics, a home life with his wife and a six-hour round-trip commute to Chicago to practice and play with the RIC Blackhawks, one of the nation’s most distinguished sled-hockey teams.

“What we do is actually harder than stand-up hockey,” Yohe says on the phone from Buffalo, New York, where the U.S. team is practicing. Before his accident, Yohe played traditional ice and roller hockey in high school. “In stand-up hockey, you can skate and handle the puck with different limbs. In sled hockey, you’re pushing yourself along with your hands and trying to handle the puck at the same time. It’s challenging.”

Arm strength makes or breaks a sled-hockey player. Instead of gliding down the rink on ice skates, Yohe straps into a sledge, a metal-framed sled with blades underneath, and uses two specially designed, three-foot-long sticks to pull himself across the ice. The sticks are serrated on the bottom to provide traction, and curved on the side to help guide the puck. Players must seamlessly transition between propelling themselves across the rink and shooting the puck, all while fending off body checks from opposing players.

The sport is proof, Yohe says, that there is life after tragedy. “A lot of positive things have come out of what happened to me,” he explains. “Other amputees see me play, and some are inspired. Seeing people that are missing limbs doing well can do a lot for a person’s psyche when they’re not sure what life’s going to hold for them.”

Four years ago, Yohe and company took home the bronze in the Torino Paralympic Winter Games, but he says the team is far more prepared this year. Yohe comes to Vancouver on the heels of victory at the 2009 International Paralympic Committee Sled Hockey World Championships; he scored the game-winning goal against Norway in the final 11 seconds, earning the U.S. its first gold medal in sled hockey.

His mission for Vancouver is simple: Take down the favored Canadian team, bring home the gold and show the world that the disabled community kicks ass. Beyond that, he’s anticipating retirement. After the Olympics, Yohe plans to hang up his sledge and focus on his next big test: fatherhood.

The Paralympic Games’ schedule is available at Vancouver2010.com.

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