Life has a way of changing in the blink of an eye.
One moment Chris Manns is a typical 10-year-old sports-loving kid from Buffalo playing by the railroad tracks and the next he is waking up in a hospital bed with his right leg amputated and his left leg lost below the knee.
He was jumping train cars not far from his house when he slipped through the bottom rung of the ladder, causing him to fall under the enormous weight of the train’s wheels. In an instant his dreams of playing competitive sports and following in a family tradition of serving in the military were gone. Still, rather than let the tragic accident consume him, he did what he has always done – he leaned on his family and his faith to help him through.
Manns was just getting started in youth hockey in the Bud Bakewell Hockey program when he was injured in March of 1991. While football was his first love, he loved the speed and physical nature of hockey. While other kids outwardly expressed their dreams of playing in the NHL, preferably with the hometown Sabres, Manns’ goal was to compete in the Olympics. And then, in the fateful blink of an eye, those dreams were gone. Or so it seemed.
A little more than two years later, Manns would receive a phone call that would change not only his life but would ultimately help change the lives of so many disabled athletes over the past 20 years. It was a call from Pam Maryjanowski of the Western New York Physically Challenged Youth Sports asking if he wanted to come over to Buffalo State College and try sled hockey. He couldn’t believe the good fortune.
“I got the phone call at 9:30 in the morning saying the clinic started at 3:30 in the afternoon. I was there at noon,” Manns said.
While the clinic lasted two hours, Manns would remain out on the ice by himself for an extra hour until someone finally coaxed him off.
“They literally pulled me off the ice. I was like ‘this is the greatest thing that ever happened to me,’” he recalled with a laugh.
“When I was invited into hockey, it sparked a real positive energy in my life. It took me from a dark place to, ‘I can play hockey again!’”
Manns has been reflecting on how far he’s come since he first received the news that he and his 2002 U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey teammates would be inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2024 during a Dec. 4 ceremony in Pittsburgh.
There’s no doubt that the 44-year-old has come so far since he was first introduced to sled hockey, and along the way he has taken the entire sport with him to heights few ever dreamed possible.
To even be there with his teammates was the most unlikely of sporting scenarios for a group of American athletes who dealt with more than their fair share of ups and downs on the road to a Paralympic gold medal in Salt Lake City.
After finishing sixth at the Paralympics just four years earlier, the U.S. Sled Team wouldn’t even have been invited to play in Salt Lake if they were not the host nation. But under the coaching leadership of NHL legend Rick Middleton, this fractured group of individuals came together as a team when it mattered most, steamrolling through the competition before beating the defending champions from Norway in a dramatic shootout to capture the first of many Paralympic gold medals for the U.S. team.
“Everybody thinks that because we won a gold medal we must have been a close-knit team, but it wasn’t like that,” Manns admitted. “When it came time for a game, we came together, but as soon as the game was over the room was divided right down the middle. … It’s just amazing how a team so divided off the ice was so successful on the ice.
“I give a lot of credit to Rick. He was like, ‘listen guys, you don’t have to like each other but you have to respect each other. If you want to be [mad] at somebody and pick on somebody, pick on me. I can take it. But these guys are your teammates.”
Time has healed many of those rifts as the team has earned its fair share of accolades, including induction into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame in 2022. More than just their play on the ice, this group of 15 players would be front and center in the growth of the sport that has given so many disabled athletes role models that they could look up to.
“What makes me proud is that I feel like I really accomplished something, and I had a positive impact on the community,” said Manns, the only New Yorker on the roster. Fellow Buffalo native Rich DeGlopper served as the team leader for the 2002 squad.
“When I came back to Buffalo, it was like I was a rockstar. The local news is there, and you get all these USA Hockey Magazine articles and ESPN did a thing, but really what made me proud the most was the impact that it had on the young kids back here in Buffalo who were maybe 5 years old at the time and didn’t even know me.”
Among those local youngsters who would follow in Manns’ sled tracks were Brad Emmerson, Alexi Salamone, Mike Blabac and Adam Page, who would all go on to decorated careers with the U.S. Sled Hockey Team.
Over the next four years life changed for Manns. He got married and had his first child all while continuing to work toward another Paralympic Games in Torino, Italy. While the team was more cohesive in nature, they would lose to Norway in the semifinals before skating past Germany to win the bronze medal. The loss would mark the last time U.S. players would not come home without gold medals around their necks.
As life continued, juggling the demands of family life and training began to take its toll on Manns and his family. After spending the next three years preparing to skate one more time in 2010, Manns made the difficult decision to step away from the team to devote his time to his growing family.
By now the elder statesman of the team, the 29-year-old defenseman was still a physical presence on the ice with his booming shot and take-no-prisoners approach on the ice. But it was his leadership in the locker room and away from the rink that general manager Dan Brennan valued most. He did his best to convince Manns to stick around for one more kick at the can, even adjusting his training schedule to better suit his home life.
“I’m a team guy and if I can’t be in the gym or on the ice five days a week, it’s not fair to the other guys,” he said. “The cuts were coming in either December or January and so if there’s a guy who is working just as hard or harder than me, he might not be as talented as me, but he’s working his tail off so why should I get a free pass?”
While he still feels he made the right move for all the right reasons, there isn’t a day goes by that he doesn’t wish he would have been there to win another gold medal in Vancouver.
“I don’t have many regrets in life, and that’s one right there,” he said. “I put three and a half years of work, training camps, blood, sweat, tears and training into being ready for Vancouver, no matter what. Me and my wife had already decided that 2010 was it, that I was going to be done, but it kind of hurt me that I put all that time and effort into it and I wasn’t able to. I could have gone to Vancouver, but I didn’t want to cheat my teammates.”
As his time with the national team drew to a close, Manns continued to skate with the Buffalo Sabres Sled Team serving as a player/coach as well as a mentor to the next generation of sled players. His physical style of play was beginning to take a toll on his body so he would pick his moments to suit up in big games as the program continued to be a dominant force on the national sled scene.
It wasn’t until two years ago that Manns played his final game, but his presence remains a driving force around Western New York.
Thanks to his blue-collar upbringing Manns has always held the belief that hard work and dedication can help you accomplish anything. He also believes that whether it’s a sports team or a job, it’s important to leave things better off than when you started. He has lived up to that end of the bargain when it comes to the growth of sled hockey both in Buffalo and around the country.
When he started with the national team, there was little in way of financial support to train, travel and compete under the red, white and blue banner. That has all changed, thanks in large part to the players, coaches and staff who did the unthinkable 22 years ago in Salt Lake City.
When Manns and his teammates meet again in Pittsburgh, they will do so with a tremendous amount of pride for their accomplishments, but also with heavy hearts that their friend and teammate Dave Conklin will not be there with them. Conklin, one of early pioneers of the sport, passed away earlier this year, but not before he was able to join his teammates in Colorado Springs to be enshrined in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame.
“It’s sad that a legend and an icon will not be there with us,” Manns said. “I looked up to him when I first started. I was 16 years old when I first met him. He was a great teammate, a great leader and a great friend.”
Still, Manns is happy that he will have plenty of family members with him in Pittsburgh, both in person and in spirit. He has already started writing down some of his thoughts, making sure to honor those who made his hockey dreams become a reality.
“There were 15 of us on the team, but it’s a lot more than 15 people that helped us along the way,” he said. “I told my parents when I announced [the news] to them, I said it’s a great honor for me to be inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, but you guys are there with me. If it wasn’t for your love and support, there’s no way that Chris Manns is even involved in winning a gold medal or being inducted into any kind of hall of fame. So, for me, it’s the time to be happy, reflect and be thankful and remember the people who helped us along the way to get to where we are.”
For a kid from Buffalo who dealt with such a tragic personal loss but would go on to accomplish great things not only for himself but for an entire sport, it will be a night to reflect on how fate presented him with a great challenge and how he rose up to meet the moment and become one of the true legends in the game.
“Who would have ever thought I’d win a gold medal, let alone multiple medals, and now to be in two Halls of Fame. It’s indescribable,” Manns said.
“My dad asked me what is a greater honor, winning a gold medal or being inducted into the Hall of Fame? I said, ‘Dad, that’s a really good question. I can’t really answer that until December 4th when it happens. I’ll let you know then.’”