The Hobart College hockey team will take part in a charity sled hockey game with the Mountain Warriors from Fort Drum, N.Y., at the Geneva Recreation Complex on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
It’s the fourth year in a row the teams have played a charity game. The event is free and open to the public. Fans will be able to try out sled hockey after the game for a rental fee that will be donated to the Mountain Warriors sled hockey team. The Buffalonian food truck will also be on site on Saturday.
Sled hockey was invented at a rehabilitation center in Stockholm, Sweden, in the 1960s by a group who, despite their physical disability, wanted to continue playing hockey. Players sit in specially designed sleds that sit on top of two hockey skate blades. Two sticks are used by each player instead of one and the sticks have metal pics on the butt end for players to propel themselves.
The 3-85th Mountain Warriors sled team came together because of the work of Mark McKenna, a project engineer with the Fort Drum Field Office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District. He was working out in a gym in Fort Drum and saw a soldier in a wheelchair enter the gym. McKenna felt more could be done for wounded veterans. Since he was a volunteer hockey coach for over 30 years, he came up with the idea of forming a sled hockey team for the disabled soldiers.
