Here’s Another Hockey Miracle to Believe In

There was no reason a 9-year-old boy in Honolulu would be smitten with hockey, but there it was. Robbie Lambert watched the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team win that “Do you believe in miracles?” gold medal, and from then on Lambert wanted nothing more in his life than to be a hockey player.

Which, in a way that became complicated and filled with pain, despair and now exhilaration, is why Lambert is sitting in his wheelchair on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills, greeting boys and girls, mostly teenagers, some a little younger, who are gathering for a roller hockey clinic sponsored by the Gardena/Carson YMCA.

Lambert, 28, is the sometime-coach and all-the-time organizer of this roller hockey league, which is part of the Los Angeles Kings/YMCA S.K.A.T.E. program. The Kings help finance it at 24 YMCAs around metropolitan Los Angeles. Lambert also works for the Kings. He is a hockey ambassador who helps solve problems and make things easier for disabled King fans.

So Lambert is not, as he so fervently hoped for 10 years, an NHL hockey player. Which doesn’t mean that he is not a part of the game that grabbed his heart in 1980. And it doesn’t mean he isn’t helping bring that game to more kids just like him.

After those 1980 Olympics, Lambert found the only ice rink in Honolulu. He would scrape together his pennies so that he could afford the $2 it cost for a Saturday skating session, 10 a.m. till midnight.

He didn’t have a coach, only skates. He didn’t have a mentor, only his strong legs.

When his mother, Cycy, divorced his father and moved to Torrance two years later, Lambert kept skating. Whatever youth leagues he could find, Lambert joined. He went out for track one year at Torrance High but only to strengthen his legs for hockey.

He also became a huge King fan and took it upon himself to introduce himself to team officials and to ask advice about the best road he could take toward becoming an NHL player.

It was the summer after his graduation from Torrance when Lambert had the accident. He was driving home from a weekend with friends at Lake Havasu. His schedule was grueling. Working all day, skating late into the night, when ice time was cheaper. He fell asleep at the wheel, rolled his car over and broke his neck. He was paralyzed.

“The doctors said I’d never get anything back from the neck down,” Lambert says. He says this having just shaken your hand. He can stand with some help and even take some steps, so the doctors were wrong. “I will play hockey again some day,” Lambert says. “I really believe that.”

But Lambert also really believes in this program. He is very proud of this program. He should be.

Mike Poummer has just brought his two sons for their skating session. The Poummers are from Compton. Jason is 13, bright and engaging and a fan of NBA basketball until he tried roller hockey. Roland is 8, a little shy but with speed and a jubilant confidence when he begins skating. Roland was born with the lower part of his right arm missing.

When Roland first came to the rink, Lambert says, “he was hesitant about getting out there. Pretty soon the other kids were chanting Ro-land! Ro-land! Roland said he was afraid the kids would laugh at him. Finally one of the bigger guys said, ‘Roland, you stay with me. I’ll watch your back.’ Now, Roland is great.”

And, indeed, Roland handles his stick like a pro, and when Jason says he’d like to be a professional roller hockey player, Roland grins and nods in agreement.

Christine Malazarte, a 14-year-old goalie, had played in another league with mostly guys but finds herself accepted more readily on Lambert’s team.

“I was the first girl to join but I always felt as if I belonged,” she says.

Kyle Oshiro, a 14-year-old from Redondo Beach, says that Lambert “makes the game fun, yet does a great job of teaching.”

John Abalos, also 14, from Gardena, says that he hadn’t found a sport so much fun to play until he joined Lambert’s team.

Lambert’s league has about 75 kids. Boys and girls, able and disabled, all are welcome. So many adults who are on campus have stopped by and asked to play that Lambert is hoping to raise enough money to start an adult league too.

Also, Lambert and his mom have started RVL SCORE. SCORE stands for Spinal Cord Organization for Regaining Excellence and Lambert and his mom raise money to help other disabled people get the rehabilitation necessary for them to live independently.

Lambert recently bought his own mobile home “just a few minutes from here,” he says. His assistant, Tarrah Clark, is helping him train a puppy to be an aide as well. Ka Manu is the puppy’s name. It means “bear” in Hawaiian, Lambert says.

Clark is having trouble teaching Ka Manu to fetch the hockey puck. The puppy would much rather play hockey with the kids. So would Lambert of course. But what he is doing is so much more important.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: [email protected].