Pat explained about the program and that their biggest disappointment was the
fact there were were no other developmentally disabled teams for them to play games
against. This stuck in Tony's mind for almost two years. The biggest problem was
being able to find the ice time that was consistent every week for the program to
develop.

Along came Kelly Chase of the St. Louis Blues who owned a parking lot paint
striping company and had done some business for Tony's company. Tony expressed
his desire to start such a team in St. Louis but was blocked by the lack of available ice
and the cost. At the time, the Blues were practicing at Brentwood Ice Rink and
Brentwood wanted the Blues to do a hockey school in the summer. Chase approached
Brentwood and agreed to put together a summer hockey school called the Gateway
Hockey School if Brentwood would make available the necessary ice time for the
Gateway Special Hockey Program. The ice became available on Mondays at noon to
1:30 and Chase operated the summer hockey school and donated all profits to
Gateway to pay for the ice. Chase is active in the program, knows the players by name
and attends practices when not practicing himself at Chesterfield.

Gateway Special Hockey first hit the ice on January 31, 1994 with 17 athletes
and the assistance of a number of Tony's friends who he recruited to help coach the
athletes. Pat and Joan Flick were on hand to help get the program started.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1994 Pat and Joan Flick brought their
Grandravine Tornadoes to St. Louis and the first ever game between two separate
programs of developmentally disabled athletes was played with the Tornadoes winning
the tournament, 2 games to one. This historical event in the history of amateur hockey
was noted by a display of memorabilia from the tournament in the Hockey Hall of Fame
in Toronto, Canada.

St. Louis hosted the tournament over the Thanksgiving weekend for the next two
years. In 1995 we had four teams, two from the Toronto area, the Tornadoes and
Durham Dragons, a spin-off from Pat's original group, and the Ottawa Valley
Ambassadors from Ottawa, Canada. In 1996 we had 7 teams, two Tornado teams, two
Durham teams and a team from Denver, Colorado (The Colorado Golden Eagles) and
a team from New York (the New York Raptors).

In the Spring of 1996 a new league was formed of the current teams from the
1996 tournament and the league name is Special Hockey International - The Heart
League.

The league now has one annual tournament that will be hosted by a different team each year. The 1997 tournament was held in New York by the Raptors and the 1998 tournament was held in Ottawa, Canada with the 1999 tournament in Denver, Colorado. This tournament provides the only opportunity for these special athletes to compete against their true peers. Without this, they would have no competition. There were 10 teams at the New York tournament and 16 teams at the Ottawa tournament.

We currently skate two 12 week sessions with one before Christmas; and one after the first of the year. We now have 35 athletes ranging in age from 7 to 37 years of age with 3-4 new athletes planned for the next session. The cost is $75 per session and Gateway provides all necessary equipment, when available, for those in need, except for skates, which can be purchased locally at a discount. All Gateway athletes and coaches are registered with USA Hockey, Inc. and Missouri Hockey, Inc. the national and local governing bodies for amateur hockey.

Gateway's funding has been all donations from individuals, some corporations and groups such as the Blueliner's, Goaltenders and the St. Louis Olympic Festival Committee or the St. Louis Sports Authority and the St. Louis Blues Hockey Club. We are planning fund-raisers for 2000. The first will be a grudge game between the Blues Alumni and the radio, tv and print media. Current Blues players will be in attendance to sign autographs and we will have Kelly Chase coach one team and Tony Twist coach the other team. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under.

We have two sessions per season;

Session I runs from September through Mid-December

Session II runs from January through Early April

We practice at Brentwood Ice Rink on Sunday afternoons from 2:00 -3:30 PM.

Information about Gateway Special Hockey can be obtained by calling Jim Hermann at 636-386-3287 or e-mail the team administrator at jhstl@earthlink.net