By Carl Pepin,  Sports Editor

KENNEBUNK - Former Maine schoolboy and Boston University hockey player Travis Roy brought his inspiring tale of personal triumph to the Atria Assisted Living Center in Kennebunk. His speech was one of a week-long series of events that Atria hosted as part of National Assisted Care Week.

Twenty-six-year-old Travis was accompanied by his father who helped him from his specially equipped van and into the lobby at Atria on Wednesday evening last week. The two were met near the doorway by a family with hockey-playing youngsters who were hoping to get an autograph. With the assistance if his father, Travis gladly obliged. Lee Roy placed a felt-tip pen in his son's mouth and he held the baseball cap in front of his face as Travis affixed his name to the inside brim.

After a few pleasantries, Travis maneuvered his wheelchair to the front of the small crowd which had gathered to hear him speak. His warm smile never left his face as he began his presentation with a question to everyone in attendance: "How many people don't know my story?"

A few of the mostly senior citizen-aged group didn't know what had happened to this native Mainer. He wasn't at all surprised by the amount of hands that had been raised as he started his story from the very beginning.

Travis was born in Augusta, Maine, and he was on ice skates when he was just 20 months old. He grew to love the game of hockey and he soon found himself spending most of his free time at the ice arena in Yarmouth which his father managed. "I'd spend hours and hours on the ice," Roy said. "It was my church. Some of the fondest memories of my life were on the ice."

He knew early on that his goal was to play for a Division I college hockey program and he set about that task while in high school.

He played his freshman season at Yarmouth and then played two more years at North Yarmouth Academy before taking his skills and talent to Tabor Academy in Marion, Mass. "I needed to play against better competition," was how Roy explained the move from Maine.

Travis' play at Tabor didn't go unnoticed by any of the major colleges playing ice hockey. He went through a recruiting process that he admittedly enjoyed and eventually settled on Boston University. The decision to become a Terrier wasn't easy but Travis wanted to experience the big-city life of Boston. In addition, the college's weight training program was one of the better ones in the country and Travis liked and was impressed with BU coach Jack Parker.

A few days before the first game of the season, Parker informed Travis that he would be suiting up for the opening game. Boston University had won the Division I national championship that spring and they would be celebrating that title during that first home game.

Looking back now, Travis says with resignation that the first game "was the best day of my life and it was the worst day of my life."

The accompanying hoopla and the frenzied fans in attendance only fuelled the fire that Travis already felt in his gut as the puck was dropped in his first collegiate hockey game.

"I was really pumped up," admitted Roy.

His turn came and he skated onto the ice for his first shift. The puck was dumped into a corner and he remembers feeling the adrenaline. "I went skating in as fast as I could. I wanted to make a hard check." But the opposing player eluded the body blow and Travis adjusted too late as he went head-first into the boards.

"I'd fallen hundreds of times and my brain kept saying 'get up, get up,'" Roy recalled. "It was the weirdest, scariest feeling. As loud as that place was, it couldn't have been any quieter."

Travis had severely damaged his spinal cord and he was paralyzed from the neck down. "For a while I thought I was just going to be a vegetable and live in my parents living room and have them take care of me," he admitted.

"At some point you've got to say 'get on with your life,'" Roy acknowledged and that's just what he did.

He decided to return to Boston University and complete his education. He graduated last year after doing a little instruction of his own. "I had to teach people how I wanted to be treated," he said. "I wanted people to see me and not just the wheelchair."

Roy has written a book about his life-altering accident called "Eleven Seconds." He wrote it in collaboration with Sports Illustrated senior editor E.M. Swift and the books title reflects the fact that he was on the ice for just 11 seconds when his injury occurred.

Travis spends his summers near relatives in Vermont where he lives by himself. Medical assistants go to his home each morning where they help him begin his day. He lives in Boston from September through May and he is constantly working with the Travis Roy Foundation, which was established to raise funds for paralysis patients who need help in paying their many bills. For more information about his work, check out www.travisroy.org

As he concluded his speech, he managed to joke that had he gone to the University of Maine, where Shawn Walsh had offered him a full scholarship, he would have won a national title in his senior year.

What he didn't joke about was his strong belief that stem cell research will ultimately help him walk again.

 

September 19, 2001