Canadian Blind Hockey Joey Cabral - Blind Hockey Spotlight May 2026
When I was about two years old, I got diagnosed with glaucoma and went completely blind at the age of four. I was pretty young, my parents had their challenges adapting to my new normal and my mom was also blind in one eye. Over the years, we adapted to being blind with the help from family, school our community and sports.
Back when I was young, I was the only blind person in my community and just like any other kid I did my best to remain active. We used to play street hockey, and it was all sighted players. I enjoyed being in front of the net, playing defense. Just touching the puck or the ball once would be a highlight of my day.
And then I found Blind Hockey…
It was back in 1998 I found out about the Toronto Ice Owls Blind Hockey team in a CNIB newsletter. I started off as a defenseman, it was pretty tough playing as a B1 defencemen but I loved it. A few years later I tried goalie and I’ve been playing in net ever since. Even though I could touch the puck as a defenseman, as a Blind Hockey goalie, I feltel like saving the puck and being in net that I was contributing more to my team and to my teammates.
I remember the inception of Courage Canada and the momentum Mark DeMontis brought to the sport. Now we have a national team and the growth of Blind Hockey has gone through the roof.
When I’m not playing Blind Hockey, I’m living the life with my career. In high school, my dream was always to be a police officer. Obviously being blind, that wasn’t going to happen. But working in the police department, was my dream. So in high school, I did co-op for two years. And after my last year, actually on my 19th birthday, my co-op boss came to me, and she asked me to be part of the TPS organization. So I signed an offer letter at the age of 19 with the Toronto Police.
I started it off with the employment unit for a few years before moving on to the Highway Patrol, where I used to be a translator. And in 2022, through a good referral, I went to Toronto ETF, the SWAT team, and I’ve been there now for four years. I screen any calls that come in that seem to meet our criteria, I’ll monitor the call and if I think that we’re going to be going to it I’ll pass it off to our sergeant and he will make the call if the SWAT team will go. In North America we’re the busiest SWAT team - we get about 900 calls per year.
I love when they integrate me into their training like I’ve done so many different scenarios. One scenario was a bank robbery, we test scenarios in parking lots, I rappel off of a building. I love that.
I want to keep Blind Hockey for as long as I can and look forward to the next generation to come up and hopefully to always be part of it as a mentor or coach.