{"id":5413,"date":"2018-02-07T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/2018\/02\/07\/hockey-is-for-everyone\/"},"modified":"2018-02-07T14:12:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:12:00","slug":"hockey-is-for-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/hockey-is-for-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Hockey is for Everyone!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hockey is for absolutely everyone, no exceptions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Everyone deserves to access our country’s wonderful sport and enjoy all of the happiness it provides us with.<\/em><\/p>\n

Original story posted ici<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Youth worked together Sunday to make hockey accessible\u00a0for everyone in Grand Rapids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Grand Rapids Blades Bantam A Hockey Team recently played a scrimmage game with players from the West Michigan Special Hockey Association at the Eagles Ice Center in Grand Rapids.<\/p>\n

The game, which the two organizations hope to turn into\u00a0an annual event,\u00a0brought together neurotypical kids and\u00a0those with special needs. Players from\u00a0the association\u00a0live with conditions like cerebral palsy, fetal alcohol syndrome, down syndrome, autism or other developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n

“There were smiles from one end of\u00a0the ice to the other,”\u00a0said\u00a0Marie Sly, the association’s executive director.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sly said around\u00a035 to 40 young people got to play\u00a0in the game Sunday, Feb. 4.<\/p>\n

Although hockey is usually played five-on-five, this game was played six-on-six\u00a0with three Blades players and three\u00a0West Michigan Special Hockey Association players per team.<\/p>\n

The game gave\u00a0youth who never have played hockey before the chance to experience the sport, Sly said. On Sunday, one player was even able to score his first goal ever.<\/p>\n

“You sit back and watch every smile and laugh,” Sly said.<\/p>\n

Hudson\u00a0Bardeggia, 13, a player on the\u00a0Grand Rapids Blades team, said some West Michigan Special Hockey Association kids could skate really fast and you could tell they were good.<\/p>\n

He said his favorite part of playing the game was coaching the kids from West Michigan Special Hockey Association. They were open to listening and\u00a0so\u00a0excited\u00a0to go on the ice each time, he said, and you don’t always see that.<\/p>\n

“They always had such a wide grin on their face,” Bardeggia said.<\/p>\n

He said there were definitely teaching moments. If one kid was struggling, another would come help them out. He said you could hear people on the bench cheering\u00a0each other\u00a0on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sly said she hopes an event like this could help\u00a0the players\u00a0in the future.<\/p>\n

If there is a situation where a student with special needs is bullied at school, one of the other players might recognize them as someone they’ve played hockey with and stop the bullying, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mission of West Michigan Special Hockey Association, a nonprofit, is to offer an amateur-level ice hockey program for children and young adults with Down syndrome, autism or any other developmental disability, according to its GoFundMe\u00a0page. The program is open to any player over the age of five, male or female, who is physically able to play but would be unable to participate in\u00a0other\u00a0organized hockey programs due to a developmental disability.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hockey is for absolutely everyone, no exceptions. Everyone deserves to access our country’s wonderful sport and enjoy all of the happiness it provides us with. Original story posted here. Youth worked together Sunday to make hockey accessible\u00a0for everyone in Grand Rapids.\u00a0 The Grand Rapids Blades Bantam A Hockey Team recently played a scrimmage game with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"segment":[],"class_list":["post-5413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5413"},{"taxonomy":"segment","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/segment?post=5413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}