Maksimyadis stands tall on and off the iceMay. 27, 2008
Max Maksimyadis, who plays goalie
on the New York Raptors Special Hockey Team,
has been selected as the recipient of the
2008 USA Disabled Hockey Athlete of the Year.
(Matthew Brown/The Journal News)
By Rick Carpiniello
Journal News columnist • May 27, 2008
ELMSFORD - Max Maksimyadis doesn't think he's as good a goalie as his idol, Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers. But he thinks they'd be a lot closer in ability if Lundqvist couldn't use a stick.
Maksimyadis, 21, plays for the New York Raptors, and he plays without a stick because he can't hold a stick. He also can't put a blocker on his right hand, so he has somebody - usually his mom - stuff the hand into the holes of a specially designed blocker, then tape the blocker to his right arm.
And he does just fine with that.
"He plays without a stick because he doesn't have use of one arm," said Mike Hickey, the president of the American Special Hockey Association, who also sits as the special hockey representative on USA Hockey's disabled section.
"In hockey terms that's a huge disadvantage for a goalie. That's a time a goalie usually loses composure, if he doesn't have a stick in his hands. Max has never had one. His ability in that way goes above and beyond."
Maksimyadis has been chosen as the USA Disabled Hockey Athlete of the Year, and will receive the award in Colorado Springs, Colo., on June 4, at USA Hockey's annual dinner.
A few weeks ago, Esther Gueft, Max's mother, got a call from J.J. O'Connor of USA Hockey, telling her Max had been chosen for the honor. Now, this is a woman who, with all she has been through with Max, isn't easily amazed.
"I was blown away," she said about the call. "I got Max out of the shower. Max said, 'I can call back.' I said, 'No, you talk to him now.'
"We still can't believe it. Why Max?"
A better question would have been, why not Max?
This is a young man who has cerebral palsy and spastic hemiparesis, essentially paralyzed down the right side of his body. He has seizure disorder and severe learning disabilities. He's dyslexic and has trouble with numbers.
"He doesn't have any true cognitive damage other than the difficulties to acquire information and to speak," his mother said. "He has some speaking problems, communication problems."
But he's nothing if not outgoing, and that's part of the reason he won this award.
Liz Truly told about when she was new as the coach of the Raptors, a team of mostly local people of varying ages and with various disabilities who travel to tournaments.
"We were dominating in a game," Truly said. "And after the game, our players were ecstatic and they were hugging him, and he wasn't really smiling or sharing in the enthusiasm of the win.
"So I said, 'What's the matter. Max?' And he said, 'You didn't tell me. You didn't give me the signal. You didn't give me the OK.' I said, 'What OK?' He said, 'Well, you're supposed to let me know when it's OK to let up some goals so we don't run up the score on the other team.' "
Truly apologized. She wasn't aware of a lesson Max and the older Raptors had learned in a tournament in Canada, when they were being blown out and the goalie allowed a few to get past him.
"He said, 'I feel really bad because it doesn't feel good to come to a tournament and have a score run up, and if I let the goals in, it doesn't make them feel like we're adjusting the score or we're letting them, and everybody comes out feeling a lot better,' " Truly said.
"That's just the kind of kid he is. He just has this empathy for everybody else around him. He wants everybody to feel good about what they're doing ... and to feel good about themselves. That's what special hockey is all about to him."
That is also why Max has been such a hit as a sports specialist and assistant counselor (for 5- to 11-year-olds) at Camp Iroquois in Mount Kisco during the summers.
"The award is very simple, I think," Max said. "They were looking at me for a year and the first year they looked at me they liked my friendships with the players and the coaches and relationships with other people."
Mostly he loves to play, and with all he's overcome, he doesn't find it terribly impressive that he can play without a stick.
"No, because I've been through challenges through my life," Max said. "In school I was picked on, and it was hard, and I got through it. Hockey's simple. Hockey's very simple. (Before) I had a couple of friends. Now I have tons of friends."
He loves when teammates or opponents - or even coaches - fire hard slap shots at him.
His right foot is deformed and he has to play with a splint/brace, and he has broken that pretty regularly because he is so active in sports - basketball; volleyball; he will compete in the Special Olympics pentathlon in Rhode Island later this week; horseback riding (which he began as a 2-year-old for therapeutic purposes).
He laughs hard when his mother describes how be breaks the splints, or how she has to tape on his blocker, or how he climbs trees and has even had seizures while in a tree.
"You're just not supposed to be this active if you've got CP," she said, making Max laugh again.
Max grew up in Scarsdale and has moved around a bit. He went to grade school in White Plains, and lived in Mount Kisco, and he graduated from Ossining Middle and High schools. Now he and his mom are looking for a group home for him, and a job for him.
But first things first. He has the trip to Rhode Island for the pentathlon Friday, and the New York state summer games in Binghamton, where he'll play on the volleyball team, in two weeks. In between is the awards dinner in Colorado Springs, where he'll rub elbows with some of the best college and amateur hockey players in the U.S.
"He doesn't let anything stop him," Hickey said. "Not only in hockey, but in life. I think that's the nature of Max. At the same time he's a caring person, too, and he thinks about others. That goes a long way. But he's his own person ... and for someone with his disabilities and who's faced the kind of things he's faced, I think that's very admirable."
Link to Online Story in the Journal News
Reach Rick Carpiniello at rcarpini@lohud.com.
