Kevin Riordan: Turning grit into gold

Michael "Bubba" Torres Jr. was 11 the first time he unfastened his prosthetic legs and strapped himself into what's called a bucket.

"When I stepped onto the ice," he recalls, "I fell in love with sled hockey."

Seven years later, Bubba - now a Riverside High School junior - has brought home a gold medal from the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver.

"There are no words to express what we were feeling, watching him on the ice with a USA jersey on," says his dad, Michael. He was in the UBC Thunderbird arena with his wife, Mary, and their 14-year-old daughter, Maranda, as the United States defeated Japan for the sled hockey gold on March 20.

Competing at that level - and in front of 6,500 fans - "obviously, your nerves get kicked up and you get the butterflies in the stomach," Bubba says. "But you focus on the task at hand. You've got to stay focused."

We're in the living room of the Torreses' cozy home in Riverside. Bubba's gold medal is on the coffee table, and his double-bladed sled sits on a patch of carpet on the hardwood floor.

Offering to show me how it all works, Bubba removes his prosthetics, propels himself across the room on his arms, slides into the bucket, and picks up his right- and left-hand hockey sticks.

It's startling; one minute the kid stands at my height, and the next he's waist-high and making a complicated maneuver with speed, strength and grace. I'm amazed he can do what he does on solid ground, much less on ice.

"I'm one of the speed guys," explains Bubba, who plays forward. "I'm out there kind of down low, trying to win the race to the puck."

His disability results from a congenital condition called ectrodactyly. "We don't use the word handicapped with him. We don't believe in that word," says his dad, 39, a district manager for Red Bull beverages.

"Bubba was born without shin bones, which are the growth bones, and he had only a couple of toes on each foot. They told us: Either amputate, or he'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

"We knew that at some point down the road we would have to look our son in the face and explain to him why part of his body was removed from him. But it was the best decision we ever made," the elder Torres says, as his son nods.

"You've got to play the cards you're dealt," Bubba says. "You've got to get out there and prove what you can do. If something is taken from you, you learn to utilize what you have."

Coaches say Bubba plays with heart, smarts, and guts.

"He's got good balance and good hands," says Tom Brake, who introduced Bubba to the sport after the boy learned about it in a TV news clip.

"I could tell by the way he took off on the ice that first time that he had potential," Brake says by phone. "Also, he has a wonderful attitude."

Brake coaches the South Jersey Wings of Steel sled hockey team at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. He must be doing something right: Another of his players, 22-year-old Tim Jones of Mount Ephraim, also played on the gold medal team.

"Bubba has tremendous skills, and one of his greatest assets is his speed," Keith Blase, a member of the International Paralympic Committee, says from his office in Colorado Springs, Colo. He brought Bubba on to the junior national Paralympic sled hockey team in 2006.

"He isn't afraid of anything," Blase says. "He competes hard with the best players from all over the world."

Bubba hopes to become an ambassador for the sport.

"There are a lot of people who don't know about it - how many people out there with disabilities are not aware of it?" he says. "I want to see as many participants as possible. What it's about at the end of the day is making the sport grow.

"I'm trying to work through some things with sponsorships. Representing the U.S. is the biggest honor I could have. I'm trying to go big with it."

Meanwhile, he'll be training for his next Paralympics in 2014 - and hoping to bring another medal home to Riverside.

"I want to experience that feeling again," Bubba says. "There are no words for it."