In his second year of junior hockey, Kelly Serbu noticed some issues with his eyes. He kept right on playing, though, even as he went blind. A Big Read by GareJoyceNHL
Hunter kept his buddy’s condition in confidence for the rest of the season. For his part, Serbu didn’t want to call any attention to himself, didn’t want to have to keep on explaining it to people, and definitely didn’t want it out there, known to players on other teams. “He was always a glue guy, the team guy … it was never about him,” Hunter says.
It started auspiciously: Serbu scored on the first shift of the Mooseheads’ first regular-season game in Amherstburg. But a few minutes later, a bit of miscommunication on the bench would wind up putting Serbu on the sidelines. Bottomley leaned over Serbu’s shoulder and said: “Don’t fight that guy.
In the seventh and deciding game of the regional final at the Halifax Forum, with a trip to the Centennial Cup on the line, the Canadians beat the Charlottetown Abbies 7–4. Serbu didn’t figure in the scoring but he made a big contribution, dropping the gloves with future NHLer David Ling, who turned his stick upside down and pretended it was a white cane as he left the ice. The last laugh, though, was Serbu’s as Ling, one of the Abbies’ best scoring threats, was tossed from the game.
Just as he wanted to be a hockey player and not the blind hockey player, so too did Serbu want to be a lawyer and not the blind lawyer. Just as he wanted no special considerations in the arena, he wanted to blend in when he walked into court. He more than pulled off that goal. A few Halifax police officers who were cross-examined by Serbu didn’t put it together that he had any sort of vision loss, at least the first few times they testified in trials he worked.
It seemed like Serbu’s remaining ties to hockey would be as a fan and recreational player, and that his second trip to the Centennial Cup with the Mooseheads would represent the endpoint of his competitive career. But in the summer of 2015, Serbu got a call from Peter Parsons, a blind athlete in Halifax. “It was really out of the blue, but Peter asked me if it would be okay if he put me in touch with Matt Morrow, the executive director of the national blind hockey association,” Serbu says.
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