When Flyers hall-of-famer Bill Barber used to say "I'm just happy to be here," before and after every playoff game, it was a cliché.When Mike Doyle or Joe Viola says it, it's the plain truth.
There were some genuine obstacles barring their paths to membership in the hockey breakfast club.There's just a slight, involuntary chuckle that you have to suppress when you hear Doyle refer to people with two legs as "able-bodied people."Doyle, 48, a Pennsauken native, lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident in 1976.He's swum the 4.4 miles across the Chesapeake Bay 17 times since then. He's also one of the country's top sled hockey players. He travels to Chicago eight to 10 times a year to play for the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) Blackhawks - which is the top team in North America and whose membership comprises more than 50 percent of the Team USA squad.Step forward if you feel you're that able-bodied.Hello?Doyle's also become one of the sled hockey's top ambassadors. He played a big part in opening local rinks for the sport, which is played Friday night at the Northeast Philadelphia Skate Zone, Saturday morning in Wilmington, Del., and Sun-day night in Elkins Park, Pa.'s Old York Road facility."I play with the kids," he said. "Some of them are getting pretty good. I get challenged there, but I get challenged more skating with the guys, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It's the best way I can get training to compete in sled. It gives me a little extra edge, and a little bit of humility. Getting busted on in the locker room, helps too, and just being part of that camaraderie."Doyle was a member of Team USA from 1997 to 2001. It took him to Nagano, Japan, for the Olympics in 1998. But where do you go from the top of the game?"Back then, I wasn't playing with able-bodied people," he said. "I wondered then if I could ever do it, so it's been a real learning experience for me."All along though, he swam with whoever showed up. He started doing it in 1986."That first year, there were about 50 people," Doyle said. "The next year, there were 150. Now they cap it off at 600, and it fills up in five hours. There are only two guys who've done it more times than I have, and I hope to outlive them. That's the first thing I say when I see them every year. Still alive, huh?"
Viola, 51, actually gets that reaction from his own doctor."My cardiologist keeps saying he doesn't know why I'm doing better," Viola said. "When I asked him what I could do (three years ago), he said 'basically, nothing.' There are certain medications - you can bring your blood pressure down and take water pills, to reduce fluids, but this isn't supposed to be something you recover from."
Viola was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2001."I actually found out I was sick at open hockey," he said. "I started getting dressed, and it was so bad, I couldn't catch my breath. Bill Shapiro came in the locker room, because I was taking so long, and said 'are you coming out, or what?' I said I couldn't do it, and everyone got ticked at me. We only had one other goalie."One doctor said it was allergies. Another, acid reflux disease. Finally, Viola went to a cardiologist and underwent a series of tests that revealed, among other things, that his "ejection fraction" - the amou-nt of blood taken into the heart that's pumped out with each beat - was 10 percent. His heart had grown to about three times its normal size."The heart expels blood at 50 percent," Viola said. "If you're under 20, they put you on the transplant list. The doctor said you're going on and I said, no, I'm not."His weight dropped from 255 to 208 pounds during a week-long hospital stay, and he missed six months of work. He runs printing presses at Samuel Baker and Sons in Pennsauken, which naturally involves some lifting."I thought I was done," Viola said. "I sent e-mails to everybody saying I think I'm done. Not just done playing hockey, but I was afraid I was done - you know - everything. I was very depressed. Then something just snapped one day and I bought myself a bike."The first day, he rode around the block. Then it was a mile. Then 5. Then 10."Finally, I was up to 25 miles and dropping weight like crazy," Viola said. "My cardiologist was scared, because it was coming off me so fast."But it wasn't his heart condition. It was diet and exercise. After a few months, he asked if he could skate. Not long after that, he wanted to play hockey again. By this time, Viola was down almost 100 pounds and his heart was back to its normal size."He really didn't want me to play," Viola said. "He said if there's a sudden strain, I could drop dead on the spot. It's not something I should be doing. But I felt good about it."Viola, who lives in Wenonah, returned to work in 2002. That's secondary, though. Getting back on the rink was bigger."I love it. I love the competition," he said. "I love being out there. I'm not thinking about being sick ... It's the best time of my life, when I'm on the ice.
"E-mail: jlewis@phillyBurbs.com
August 9, 2004 8:23 AM