By Kristi Patton /
For Dallas Boyd, the roar of the crowd doesn’t get her going after a goa—not that she doesn’t appreciate it, it’s just that she can’t hear them.
“I was 18 months old and I just went deaf—the doctors still do not know why,” she says in an interview done over chat on the Internet. “I am profoundly deaf. I do not hear a thing, just mostly feel things.”
So when the arena is pumping loud music to the masses, she feels the thumps in her body. When the puck crosses the line in favour of her Stoney Creek Sabres Midget team and everyone starts cheering, she sees the grins on her teammates faces.
“Whether it’s a hat trick or a single goal, it’s all about the look on my teammates faces and the fans of course,” she writes.
Being deaf has never held her back. At three-years-old, she learned how to skate and the following year she was following in her big brothers’ (Dylan Boyd, who plays for the Hamilton Red Wings Junior A hockey club) footsteps grasping onto a stick and swatting at pucks.
“My mom and dad say that I can do anything I want and I never feel like I could not,” she writes.
It is her dedication that has earned her a spot for the second-year in a row with the Sabres, who play in the Provincial Women’s Hockey League and won the 2009 provincial silver medal.
But it is not just in hockey where she perseveres. In 2006, Boyd was the captain of the silver medalist Canadian basketball squad in the Deaf Pan Am Games and she volunteered for two years at a teen ranch deaf hockey camp.
“I wanted to give back,” she writes of her volunteer experience where she would share her athletic success with other deaf kids. “I think it’s very important for me and them. I want them to know that – so what you are deaf – you can do anything you want. I like being a role model.”
On the ice, she is a hard worker, who leads the team in the warmup/cooldown and isn’t afraid to dig in the corners to get the puck. Off the ice, you can find her at the gym or shooting pucks everyday in her driveway. The Sabres coaches recognized her efforts and named the feisty forward as assistant captain this season. So far, she is living up to the honour — playing on the top line with Ariell O’Neill and Rylee Smith, the Sabres are off to a good start in the Provincial Women’s Hockey League and Boyd is in the Top 15 in league scoring. The trio have known each other for years and have a chemistry that assisting them in putting up huge numbers early into the season (O’Neill has 22 points in 10 games, Smith has 14 points in 10 games and Boyd has 12 points in 10 games).
“They are good players and I learn different things from them. Rylee Smith is hockey smart, works hard, never gives up and is a sniper. Arielle O’Neill is a natural goalscorer who works hard, is always happy and makes a good captain,” Boyd writes of her teammates.
Despite the obvious inability to communicate through their voices, the group has gelled. Some of the players that have been with Boyd for awhile have learned some basic sign-language to communicate with her but through texting on their cell phones in the dressing room, reading body language and coaches using white boards she doesn’t miss a thing. Boyd credits her coaches Stacey Marnoch, Deb Pauk, Kelly Janzen and Glenn Boles as being wonderful to her.
“Dallas brings inspiration and motivation to the team on many levels. Her teammates have made the effort to learn to communicate with her which just strengthens the bond of the team as a unit and have become a very close team family,” said assistant coach Pauk. “As a member of the coaching staff, it has been a priviledge working with Dallas over the past couple of years as she continues to inspire us all.” |