Philip Giammarioli – Blind Hockey Spotlight
This year Canadian Blind Hockey wants to highlight one of our latest coaches Philip Giammarioli! His family may be newer to Blind Hockey, but they’ve already become a familiar name at our programs and events:
I first learned to skate at a very young age on the frozen creek behind our neighbour’s house in a village 200km NE of Edmonton. My earliest childhood winter memories are of my brother clearing the snow from that narrow tributary in order to usher me back and forth mimicking the strides of Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Growing up during the Oilers’ dynasty of the 1980’s made it simple for me to become passionate about hockey. I started playing organized hockey shortly thereafter, gearing up in the stove heated rink shack at the local outdoor rink where a few of my friends’ hockey crazed dads decided to teach us about the game. Over four decades later and a journey through organized minor hockey, University intramurals, inline summer hockey, and the eventuality of decades of beer league, life has come full circle. Though the old rink shack has been replaced by state of the art athletic facilities, I too understand what it is to be a hockey crazed dad passionate about teaching the game.
I played hockey my entire life but it wasn’t until my wife Renee and I had kids that I decided to become a hockey coach. I wanted to be involved in every facet of my boys’ hockey development to ensure that they would have the same opportunities as every other child on the ice. My sons, Dante and Lorenzo, were born with Autosomal Dominant Stargardt-like Macular Dystrophy – a hereditary degenerative eye disease that would eventually lead to significant loss of their central vision. This eye condition is prevalent in my wife’s family and typically begins affecting vision after childhood. I knew in advance that, at some point, how Dante and Lorenzo played sports was going to change and I wanted to make sure that they could enjoy hockey for as long as they possibly could without obstacles or the stigma of playing with a disability.
On November 1st, 2022, Canadian Blind Hockey was hosting a “Try Blind Hockey” event in Edmonton where several Oilers Alumni would be taking part, so we decided to attend. When I heard that the boys would get to take the ice with Kevin Lowe, Paul Coffee, Charlie Huddy and more, I was transported right back to my childhood imitating those very players hoisting the Stanley Cup. Dante and Lorenzo were more excited to play hooky from school the day after Halloween in anticipation of a candy hangover. This became our foray into the blind hockey community. The boys got to meet Jason Yuha and Tristan Lindberg wearing their gold medals from the most recent victory over the US in the Blind Hockey International Series (it’s funny to think that within a few short years, Dante would be a teammate of theirs). I met with Matt Morrow and Luca DeMontis and they encouraged me to register the boys in some of the larger CBH events and in March of 2023 we took part in the Canadian Blind Hockey National Tournament in Toronto. Since then, we’ve jumped head first into the blind hockey world with CBH – Dante, Lorenzo, and Renee as players and me as a coach.
Coaching Blind Hockey has been a very rewarding experience for me. I have had the privilege of coaching all levels and abilities with CBH, from Children/Youth to Adult Development to the High Performance/National Team players. I’ve been coaching traditional hockey for many years which allows me to impart a lot of game knowledge and skills development strategies to the blind hockey community. In return, coaching with Canadian Blind Hockey has helped me evolve as a coach, teaching me to develop different methods on how to adapt to the nuances of playing with a visual impairment and strategizing for the adapted rules of the game.
Since being introduced to Blind Hockey in the fall of 2022, every member of my family has had the pleasure of becoming fully immersed in the community. Coaching for CBH has become my way of giving back; it is my greatest honor as a mentor and leader in the sport of hockey.
