East Rutherford, NJ -- Every time Chris Drury bends down to lace his skates, he sighs in silent thanks, thinking of a young man who can no longer walk. One of his best friends in sports is paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair and praying for a miracle. This pal is counting on Drury to turn the hockey back into the stuff of sweet dreams, rather than an endless nightmare.

Travis Roy never forgets his legs are dead, and he won't glide across the ice ever again. Roy's heart, however, soars every time Drury slaps a puck into the net for the Colorado Avalanche. Unfortunately, the high can't last. Reality brings Roy crashing back down to earth.

"The only way I get to live my dream of playing hockey now is through Chris Drury," Roy says. "How much do I miss hockey? More than anything. If, by magic, I could have one thing back in my life now, I would take hockey over sex."

Nearly six years have passed since the terrible accident, when Roy and Drury were linemates at Boston University for one lousy shift, a blur of fate that left one player with a freak injury, after a violent collision with an opponent.

Out of this tragedy was born a relationship destined to change two lives forever.

"Travis Roy is not only my friend, he's a huge inspiration to me," Drury says. "There's not a day that goes by when I don't think about him." Want a measure of love's power? A man who cannot walk has the strength to lift Drury's spirit.

Merely by closing his eyes, Drury can see his Terriers teammate, No. 24 in a Boston University sweater, crashing headfirst into the boards during a college game Oct. 20, 1995. And, try as hard as he might to forget, Drury can still hear that grotesque cracking noise, like a tree limb breaking, the awful sound of Roy's back breaking.

Left motionless, facedown on the cold rink, Roy did not yet realize he had fractured his cervical spine, or how difficult even the easiest tasks in his life were soon destined to become. A scant 11 seconds into his college hockey career, the young BU freshman who aspired to NHL stardom suddenly was a quadriplegic.

"It could have been me," says Drury, who was three strides from where Roy fell. "The pressure I feel in the Stanley Cup Finals is nothing like the struggle Travis faces merely to get through a single day."

Saturday morning, in his new Boston home, Roy never would had gotten out of bed without helping hands, could not fasten the buttons on his shirt by himself, and every inch he traveled required him to huff and puff commands into an air tube that controls the motions of his wheelchair.

Saturday night, Drury performed a ballet with the puck, displaying stickwork that would make a fighting ninja envious, while scoring a highlight-reel goal that beat New Jersey netminder Martin Brodeur and briefly put the Avalanche ahead in the second period.

It would be nice to report Drury propelled the Avs to a stirring win in Game 4, and took control of the NHL Finals on a score that made Roy smile. But, just as the Devils rallied for two goals in the final period to defeat Colorado 3-2 and tie the best-of-seven series at two games each, the stomach-wrenching travails of life can seldom be wrapped up with the simplicity of the dramatic musical flourish that accompanies those too-pat happy endings in a three-hanky, made-for-TV movie.

Like any real friendship, the strong ties that bind Drury and Roy are too intricately tangled to be reduced to a parable. Roy is not a martyr. He's human, susceptible to all the inherent foibles that plague any guy cursed by unfathomable bad luck. So should it come as any surprise that when Drury excitedly pumps a fist after a score, the electricity coursing through Roy's body does not conduct 100 percent pure joy?

"Every every time I watch Chris Drury score a goal, there are two sides to the story," Roy admits. "On the one hand, I'm excited, because in my heart, every time he scores a goal, I feel like I just did, too.

"To tell the truth, though, there's also a part of me that is freakin' ticked off. Because, watching (Drury), I'm reminded that I will never have the chance to lace up a pair of skates again. I know it's wrong to think that way. So I try to let it go. But it's hard."

It's even harder to ask why Drury plays to the roar of the capacity crowd in arenas, while Roy scratches out a living by giving speeches about never giving up. Looking for karma in hockey is an invitation for a nasty cross-check to the soul. Go figure: The New Jersey goal that tied the score and turned Game 4 against Drury and Avs, was set up by a lucky poke of the puck from Devils winger Jay Pandolfo, who was sitting on the BU bench during the 11 seconds that uprooted Roy's life. After every Terriers game his senior season, Pandolfo dutifully carried Roy's uniform in tribute, while the two teams exchanged handshakes.

"No. 24 is the only number ever retired in the history of Boston University hockey," Pandolfo recalls. "I'll never forget Travis Roy, although I try to put what happened to him out of my mind when I'm on the ice. But I've got to admit, when I see a player go down hard and can't move, like (teammate) Scott Niedermayer did earlier in the playoffs (against Toronto), I think the worst. I can't help myself."

But it is Drury whom Roy pulls for now. Drury, after all, was the primary reason a teenage prospect from Maine had enrolled at Boston University. From afar, Roy had idolized an older teammate he had long followed in newspaper clippings, from the time Drury emerged as a 12-year-old boy wonder on the baseball diamond, leading a scrappy team from Trumbull, Conn., to the Little League World Series championship. Roy craved to crib secrets from Drury until he too was a famous athlete. "I never got the payoff I was looking for from hockey," he says.

Roy got more than any friend could bargain for in Drury, though. While cowards ran, as if paralysis was contagious, Drury grew closer to Roy after the injury, and wasn't afraid to ask the hard questions about the unspeakable fears of a strong athlete betrayed by his body. To this day, when the telephone rings, laughter immediately connects the two pals. A disability didn't stop Roy from earning his college degree. Drury has started an annual charity golf tournament, hoping to help underwrite a cure for his pal. "I can't tell you how much knowing Travis Roy has changed my life for the better," the Avalanche center says.

In his third NHL season, Drury imagines hoisting the Stanley Cup and gulping down the sweet champagne of triumph.

In his wildest fantasies, Roy would settle for magic that could allow him the simple thrill of being able to lift a glass of water to his own lips. "I don't ask for much in my miracles," Roy says.

As long as a man's thirst is insatiable, no dream's impossible.

June 3, 2001 - Denver Post