Their journey began on Thursday night when the Wings of Steel all gathered from various South Jersey towns to meet at the Buffalo Marriott. Their mission: they wanted to win the Disabled Festival Tournament for the team’s out-going seniors - Steve Potter, Nickolai Jewell and Hesham ‘E’ Nassar. On Sunday morning they accomplished that mission with a 4-2 win over a scrappy team from Minnesota, the Wild. Having gone 3-0 in their first three games, the Wings were faced with playing the title game without their starting goalie, Nate ‘Buzz’ Costa.

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Isaiah Beck snapped a 1-1 tie with three minutes left in the game as the Wings of Steel defeated the Minnesota Wild 3-1, advancing both teams to the title game in the Disable Festival in Buffalo. Jesse Beck scored midway through the first period on a breakaway as he slid the puck under the goalie and found the long side. That 1-0 lead held up until late in the third period, the Wild would get the tying goal on a shot from the point that was just under the crossbar. After taking a much-calculated time out, Coach Valentine addressed the team and stressed playing solid defense, put his top line out there and told Isaiah to go score.

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Isaiah Beck continued his torrid scoring streak adding two more goals as the Wings of Steel defeated the Nashville Sled Preds 4-1. The win caps a 2-0 day for our team and puts them in good position to advance to the finals. Hashem Nassar and JoJo Costa scored the other goals for the Wings. Beck opened the scoring in the first period going top shelf. Later in the period Mike ‘BuddhaMan’ Mauger broke down the left side and after his shot was saved, Nassar was there to put home the rebound and the lead was 2-0. Mauger appeared to give the Wings a 3-0 lead but had the goal wiped out on a crease violation.

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Isaiah Beck scored a hat trick and brother Jesse added a goal to give the Wings of Steel an opening round 5-3 win over a team from Ohio as play opened up in Buffalo for the Annual Disabled Hockey Festival. The Wings jumped out to an early 2-0 lead against former teammate Mike Reiner, who got his first start of the season in nets for Youngstown. Mike played with the Wings tournament team last year, so it was bitter-sweet playing against our former teammate. Youngstown cut the lead to 2-1 late in the first period. Wings got the lead back to 3-1 as Isaiah scored on a breakaway midway through the second period, but the scrappy kids from Ohio would not go away and cut the lead to 3-2 heading into the final period. Mike “BuddhaMan” Mauger gave the Wings some breathing room as he lifted a shot from between the circle to make it 4-2.

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The Wings of Steel sled hockey team, for the better part of a decade, as a team we have had a lot of success, winning championships and tournaments. The team has experienced some tough losses also. Both losses on the ice and personal losses, off the ice. Life is a roller coaster. Generosity is another trait our team has enjoyed, from our annual golf outing which has turned out to be a most successful event that no one wants to miss, to skating against able body teams.

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On Sunday, December 28, 2014, alumni athletes from the Flyers and Cherokee hockey clubs came together on the ice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees to play for the love of the game of hockey and to inspire awareness. When you have success in any sport, the good times are always remembered when an alumni game is played, no matter the sport. This year the Cherokee Chiefs, led by Scott McKay decided to up the stakes in the 6th annual Jeff Burd Memorial alumni game, which benefits the Jeff Burd Memorial Fund. With this year’s game, three charities will benefit - USA Warriors, National Meningitis Foundation and the Virtua Wings of Steel.

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In what was billed as a “Friendship Series”, a young team named Ladoga from Tula, Russia traveled to the United States to play against our Wings of Steel in sled hockey games at the Virtua Flyers Skate Zone in Voorhees, but this journey began a few months ago as USA Hockey reached out to Coach Brake about a reciprocal sponsorship, that being a Russian team would come here and play our kids and we host them and help with their expenses and then our team next year would travel to Russia and they would return the favor.

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Let’s not mince words, Mother Nature is a Sled Hockey fan. She must be since she has provided spectacular weather for the Wings of Steel Golf Tournament at Ramblewood Country Club, every year for the last seven years. This event was born of need. See below for the history of Wings of Steel Golf Tournament at Ramblewood. For now, please enjoy this recap of another successful golf outing and the converging of kindness with the relish of a good day of golf. As in the past seven years, the numbers of participants have never been a problem. This year presented a problem in that the registration filled up early and we had the distinct issue of actually being overbooked and had to turn away players.

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