U.S. sled hockey team has five players from the Buffalo area

Four of the locals may be in the starting lineup as team seeks world title

By Gene Warner NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 03/13/08 7:59 AM

The Buffalo area has a new claim to fame, to add to its reputation as Chicken Wing Capital of the World and Queen City of the Great Lakes.

Western New York is the Sled Hockey Capital of the United States.

The U.S. national sled hockey team, preparing for the world championships in Marlborough, Mass., late this month, has 15 players on its roster.

Five are from the Buffalo area. That’s one-third of the team, a group whose players hail from outposts stretching from New Hampshire to Texas, from New Jersey to Utah.

And four of the locals, three forwards and a defenseman, may be in the U.S. starting lineup for the team’s first game March 29.

All five local members of the national sled hockey team also are Buffalo Sabres Sled Hockey players. Each came to the sport after suffering an accident or developing a disability, either at birth or much later.

“Doors close and windows open,” goalie Mike Blabac said, referring to his being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001. “I’m honored to play for my country.”

Sled hockey, for the uninitiated, is similar to ice hockey but with a couple of exceptions.

The players sit just inches above the ice, on 4-foot-long aluminum sleds with skate blades attached to the bottoms. And they carry two cutoff stick blades, stickhandling and shooting with the blade end, while using the metal teeth on the other end to dig into the ice to zoom up and down the rink.

The game is fast, aggressive and filled with skill. Players, using both hands, display an uncanny shooting accuracy, routinely hitting the corners of the net or clanking their shots off the crossbar or goal posts. The five local team members are:

• Team captain Chris Manns, 27, of Buffalo, a defenseman and veteran of the national teams that won the Paralympics gold medal in Salt Lake City in 2002 and the bronze medal in Turin, Italy, in 2006.

• Brad Emmerson, 22, of Amherst, a forward who also played on the 2006 bronze medal team.

• Alexi Salamone, 20, of Grand Island, another forward and the third local veteran on the national team.

• Blabac, 34, of South Buffalo, the national team’s new backup goalie and a former “stand-up” high school goalie at St. Francis and South Park high schools.

• Adam Page, 16, the rookie forward from Lancaster, a sophomore at St. Mary’s High School who joined the national team for a recent tournament in Japan while classmates studied for their midterm exams.

They all took different routes to sled hockey.

Adam Page was born with spina bifida. Emmerson has cerebral palsy. Manns is a double amputee from a train accident in 1991, when he was 10. Salamone, born with deformed legs 14 months after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, had both legs amputated at age 4.

But the Buffalo five share a common denominator.

“They’re dedicated athletes, and they take it seriously,” said Norm Page, Adam’s father and a former president of Buffalo Sabres Sled Hockey. “They’re out to win the gold.”

The elder Page, who served as president of the local sled hockey program for four years, now wears the hat of proud father.

“It’s the love of Adam’s life, playing hockey,” he said. “I’m like any proud dad. To have your son at the top of the sport is beyond words, really.

“When Adam was born, our dream was for him to have a normal

life and be a regular kid. This is a dream come true for us. To see our son play in the Paralympics in Vancouver in 2010, we’re blessed.”

Adam started out early in sled hockey.

“I was always dreaming of playing stand-up hockey,” he said. “From 3 years old, I was watching the Sabres on TV, and I fell in love with the game.”

Adam found out about sled hockey at age 6, and he has spent much of his youth hanging around the local team — guys he now calls his teammates.

Sled hockey teams, like those in almost any sport, feature plenty of good-natured ribbing volleyed back-and-forth inside the locker room.

Adam, of course, who just turned 16, gets his fair share of the ribbing.

“Don’t let him kid you,” Blabac told a reporter interviewing Adam. “He came out of the womb on a sled.”

By contrast, Blabac, the oldest member of the national team, came to the sport only after being diagnosed in his late 20s. As a former high school hockey goalie, he had to learn how to move laterally on the sled and deal with all the traffic in front of the net.

“I played the game,” he said. “I know the game. A lot of guys have never played stand-up. So that helped me adjust quicker.”

No one has a definitive answer why one-third of the national team hails from Western New York. But it apparently has a lot to do with the Buffalo Sabres Sled Hockey organization — and its close ties with groups that include Hasek’s Heroes, SABAH, the Sabres, Hockey Outlet and the Variety Club.

Norm Page may be proudest that the five national team players all help coach the kids. Buffalo Sabres Sled Hockey has four teams, with about 60 players.

Locally and nationally, sled hockey players are taught they should give back, to help grow their sport and help the others following in their sled tracks.

“I like to work with the kids,” Emmerson said. “Not just to help them get better at hockey, but to help them as people, to better themselves in life.”