Pioneer Doyle to get award By CHUCK GORMLEY Courier-Post Staff As a hearing impaired young boy with cerebral palsy, Cinnaminson's Bobby Keys grew up wondering what it would be like to play on a team. Then he met Mike Doyle. As a young girl growing up in Philadelphia with cerebral palsy, Cate Reynolds never felt she was good at any sport she tried. Then she met Mike Doyle. On Friday night at Stanford University, Doyle's tireless work as one of sled hockey's pioneers was recognized when he was honored by the Positive Coaching Alliance at the fourth annual National Youth Sports Awards.   "Even though Mike didn't ask for it, it's a way to give him something back," said Keys, 17, who began skating with Doyle four years ago and is now playing in a sled hockey adult league. "Others have worse disabilities than me, but because of Mike I can actually play hockey. He's given me a chance to be on a team and he's helped me get better." A 49-year-old resident of Pennsauken, Doyle is a three-time Paralympian in swimming who was introduced to sled hockey in 1994 by a Norwegian athlete. Since then he has helped form teams throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including the South Jersey Wings of Steel coached by Tom Brake in Voorhees, the Atlantic Hammerheads coached by Frank Hallman in Philadelphia and the Vineland Sled Stars coached by Ken Shelton. With the help of Doyle, sled hockey's popularity has blossomed among disabled athletes and now more than 600 players are registered on 55 teams across the country. Reynolds, a 16-year-old sophomore at Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote, Pa., nominated Doyle for the award he will receive tonight at a banquet attended by Phil Jackson and former Olympic gold medalists Bart Conner, Nadia Comaneci and Kerri Strug. In her nomination letter to the Positive Coaching Alliance, Reynolds explained how Doyle became more to her than a hockey coach. "He helps me with school, with problems I have away from hockey," she said. "I started rowing a couple years ago and I wanted to quit. He told me to stick with it. He's had a great influence on my life. Seeing how he completely turned his life around after his accident made me have a more positive outlook on my life." A native of Warrington, Pa., Doyle was 20 when he lost his right leg after a motorcycle accident in New Hope, Pa. "I was a crazy kid going way too fast and a lady driving way too slow turned into my path," he said. "I broadsided her." Doyle said he skidded several feet and landed in a ditch. Four days after the accident, gangrene set in and his right leg had to be amputated above the knee. "It sucked," he said. "There's no other way to put it. I didn't take it very well. It took seven or eight years until I reached a point I could even wear shorts." Doyle was working at a machinery shop at the time of the accident and he had no aspirations of doing anything special with his life. Shortly after the accident, he began working at the Naval shipyard in South Philadelphia and took up swimming. "It became my obsession," Doyle said. "I started training five and six days a week." Doyle represented the United States in three Paralympic Games, winning one gold, three silver and two bronze medals in 1988, 1992 and 1996. But it was during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, that Doyle was first introduced to sled hockey, which in Norway is termed sledge hockey. When he returned, Doyle bought his own sled but had no team to join. To learn more about the sport, he started coaching youth hockey and one of his players' parents introduced him to a boy with an artificial leg who wanted to play hockey. One telephone call led to another and with the help of occasional newspaper articles, Doyle started finding disabled children interested in trying sled hockey. He formed the South Jersey Wings of Steel in 2000 and many of his former players have graduated to the Pennsylvania Center-pedes, an adult team that plays at the Cobbs Creek rink in Philadelphia. "It's become my life's work," said Doyle, who now works at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Philadelphia. "If I had a marriage, it would be over by now." Doyle still plays early morning hockey with able-bodied players at the Pennsauken Flyers Skate Zone and hopes to represent his country in the 2006 Winter Paralympics in Turin, Italy. He continues to swim and for the past 19 summers has successfully crossed the Chesapeake Bay. He said he is "taken aback" and "overwhelmed" by the award he will receive tonight because "what I do has nothing to do with awards." Instead, Doyle said his coaching philosophy has always dealt with making kids feel a sense of accomplishment. "I just want these kids to have fun and meet other kids," he said. "I want them to know we can have a passion for something that no one can steal from us. I know players who can hardly touch the puck. But when they do, they're the happiest players on the ice. To me, that's all the reward I need."