Next time you’re at the TD Banknorth Garden, maybe for a Celtics or Bruins playoff game, you might want to take a few minutes to stop by the Sports Museum.

There, you can read a copy of Scituate fifth-grader Toby Sandblom’s essay, “Travis Roy (Character Counts).” Sandblom was one of the winners of the museum’s 2008 Will McDonough Writing Contest, and his essay is on display in the museum’s exhibit to McDonough, a Boston Globe columnist who died in 2003.

Sandblom’s essay is about Travis Roy, a Boston University ice hockey player who was injured 11 seconds into his first shift on the team. Roy, now unable to move his arms and legs, has made a career as a motivational speaker. Before writing his award-winning essay, Sandblom, a hockey player and fan, read Roy’s book “Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph.”

“(Roy) kept a great attitude because he realized, even with everything he had lost, he was alive and still the same person with the determination that he displayed in hockey,” Sandblom said in his essay.

Of the more than 1,800 students statewide who entered the contest, Sandblom was one of nine winners chosen by Boston Globe staff. One winner was chosen from each grade level from fourth through 12th grades.

On April 2, Sandblom and the other winners attended an awards ceremony at the Garden. The ceremony was hosted by sports broadcaster — and Will McDonough’s son — Sean McDonough, who Sandblom recognized from television. At the ceremony, Sandblom also met Globe columnist Jackie MacMullan, a writer he knows from her work in the paper and appearances on television.

After the awards were given out, the winners were treated to seats to the Celtics game.

Sandblom’s winning essay took him two nights to write. Or, more specifically, it took him one night to write the essay and another night to cut the essay from 600 words to the 300 the contest required. When he found out he had won, through a phone message from a museum spokesman, he thought it was a joke.

Sandblom had missed the phone call because, fittingly, he was at hockey practice.

 

Appeared in Wickedlocal.com