A 13-year-old boy left devastated by the theft of the para-sledge he uses to play ice hockey can return to the rink after another junior team offered to buy him a replacement.<\/p>\n
Matthew, who plays for Sheffield Steelkings para ice hockey club, lost his sledge when it was taken – along with his mum’s car – while they were watching a Sheffield Steelers game.<\/p>\n
Matthew and his mum Victoria, a nurse, immediately launched a crowdfunder for a new sledge – and soon surpassed their \u00a31,000 target.<\/p>\n
But in the meantime Hampshire club Basingstoke Junior Bison offered to buy him a new sledge, with the extra money raised going towards more equipment for Matthew’s team.<\/p>\n
Matthew, who lives in north Lincolnshire but trains in Sheffield, decided to join the team after watching professional outfit the Steelers. He lives with cerebral palsy.<\/p>\n
He was “devastated” when his sledge was stolen because the sport had become “his life”.<\/p>\n
After seeing his story on social media, the Basingstoke Junior Bison club, which is soon to be closing after three decades, said it wanted to buy him a new sledge using leftover funds.<\/p>\n
Tony Rearden from the team said: “We wanted to do something positive that reflected the spirit of the Junior Bisons over the years, so when we heard about Matthew’s sledge being stolen we knew we could make a real difference.<\/p>\n
“Hockey’s always been about community; giving everyone a chance to play.<\/p>\n
“Helping Matthew get back on the ice seemed the perfect way to give back.”<\/p>\n
Victoria said the new sledge was “even better than the original” because it was lighter and more streamlined.<\/p>\n
She said her son “burst into tears” when she told him the Bisons had offered to buy the sledge outright.<\/p>\n
Matthew said he was “shocked” and “so happy” to get back on the ice.<\/p>\n
“It looks amazing,” said Matthew.<\/p>\n
“It’s a lot better, and it just looks – new!”<\/p>\n
Mr Rearden said it had been “a pleasure” to help at a time which has also been really hard for the club.<\/p>\n
“Knowing Matthew will be able to get back training again means a lot to everyone at the Junior Bisons,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It means someone else can have the opportunity to get on the ice.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 13-year-old boy left devastated by the theft of the para-sledge he uses to play ice hockey can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-502398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115380164014218647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}