Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Steve Cash grew up in Overland, firing hockey pucks as hard as he could at his brothers—and vice-versa—in their back yard. Now, he’s the world’s premier goalie in sled hockey, a version of the sport played by physically challenged athletes. Next month, Cash and his teammates on the U.S. national team, including war veterans and two high-schoolers, will compete at the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia. In 2010, the U.S. won gold, and Cash didn’t allow a single goal in five games.
• The way the sport is different from ice hockey is, first of all, obviously we’re sitting down in sleds. The sleds are composed of a bucket we strap our lower torso into, atop a metal frame we strap our feet into. Underneath that, there’s a metal bracket mounted to the bottom of the sled with two blades.
• Players have two sticks—one in each hand. At the end of the sticks are metal picks that allow us to dig into the ice and propel ourselves. It’s very hard to master.
• The rules that are different include a penalty called “T-boning,” which is just what it sounds like, and another one called “picking,” if you use the bottom of your stick as a weapon. Otherwise, it’s just the same as stand-up hockey, the same icing and offsides penalties and everything, and I would say it’s just as fast, too.
• At the age of 3, I lost my leg to bone cancer. After having it amputated, I was fitted with a prosthetic at 4 or 5. It took me six months to learn to walk over again. I had been accustomed to having two fully functional legs. My parents and brothers made sure I was comfortable with myself and that I wouldn’t have any inhibitions. I would play with my brothers in the back yard, and I could keep up with them. That kind of gave me my athleticism.
• I found hockey at age 8. My brothers and I strapped pillows and newspapers to each other and shot pucks at each other as hard as we could. At 10, I played inline hockey on a rec team. Four years after that, at a local inline hockey tournament, a coach approached me and asked me if I’d ever heard of sled hockey. I tried it out. Hockey is hockey, and I fell in love with it. I never knew that it would propel me to the success I’ve had in the last few years.
• Sled hockey might be a little more physical than standup hockey in that our sleds are mostly composed of metal, and with us crashing into each other, it makes for a loud sound and a graphic scene. It probably looks worse than it actually is. The physical aspect just comes with the sport.
• Getting into sled hockey really changed my perspective. Before then, I was around people that had never been accustomed to someone with a prosthetic or a disability, and it gave me a feeling of isolation, in a way. I still played, but I didn’t feel like I was included as much as I could have been. When I found sled hockey, I found a camaraderie, because other people have struggles that they go through every day, as much as I do, if not more. It opened my eyes and showed me maybe I didn’t have it so bad. I found a community where people could share common interests and forget about what we’ve been through in the past and just play hockey.
• With it being a Paralympic year, the training is a little more hectic, and guys are just focused on getting in the gym and getting as much ice time as we can. Every athlete knows that it’s all about getting the practice in. With [the Winter Paralympics in] Sochi being right around the corner, it’s gonna take hard work from all 17 guys.
• We call it sled hockey in America; everywhere else in the world, it’s called sledge hockey.
• At the international level, we’re not allowed to fight, and during major competitions, they’ll not only throw you out for the rest of the game for fighting, they’ll make you sit out for the next game, too. As you can imagine, guys don’t want to risk that, so we shy away from fighting. But against teams with heated rivalries, like Canada, we do sometimes get into scraps.
• We do have a club team in St. Louis, the DASA Blues. DASA is the Disabled Athletes Sports Association. We travel and compete with other teams in the Midwest. This past year we won a national championship, our first one. This is my fifth season. We have two guys on the DASA Blues, Josh Pauls and myself, who are both on the national team. He attends Lindenwood University. We practice at Lindenwood Ice Arena in Wentzville.
• As a goalie, being so low, my head is the main target. With pucks flying at me at 70 miles per hour, it gets a little intense, so I have to make sure I’m focused. Without having the use of my legs, I’m giving up a lot of the top of the net, I have to make sure I’m positioned just right to grab pucks in the corners.
• NBC has announced 50 hours of coverage of [the Paralympic games in] Sochi total, and most of it will stream online, too, so that’s exciting for us. We haven’t had that before. Sled hockey, wheelchair curling, and alpine and Nordic skiing are the four big sports, so we have a good chance for lots of coverage.
• I received an ESPY in 2010 for Best Male Athlete with a Disability. While it’s an individual award, I wouldn’t have received it without all my teammates who put it all out on the ice and work their hardest so we could win that gold medal in Vancouver.
• Recently, the whole U.S. team had dinner at St. Louis Blue David Backes’ house. He is such an ambassador for ice hickey and sled hockey. Most of my teammates won’t soon forget it. He’s a great guy on and off the ice.
