By CHUCK GORMLEY
Courier-Post Staff

January 25, 2006

VOORHEES

Someday, Absegami High School sophomore Jim Connelly will tell his grandchildren about the time he stickhandled through U.S. Olympians Derian Hatcher, Mike Knuble and Robert Esche and scored his first goal against NHL competition.

Someday, Mt. Ephraim's Tim Jones, a Camden County Vo-Tech freshman, will tell the story of slamming Hatcher into the boards, stealing the puck and feeding Hatboro-Horsham (Pa.) High School junior Mike Hallman for a goal.

OK, so Esche, Knuble and Hatcher are not expert sled hockey players. But they are U.S. Olympians and on Tuesday they shared their passion for hockey with Connelly, Jones and Hallman, who will compete for the U.S. sled hockey team March 10-19 in the 2006 Paralympic Games in Italy.

The Paralympics are held two weeks after the closing ceremonies of the Olympics and the Paralympians stay in the same Olympic village and play in the same facilities as the world's best able-bodied athletes.

"I don't think it's really sunk in yet," said Connelly, who along with Jones and Hallman will be honored during tonight's game between the Flyers and Montreal Canadiens at the Wachovia Center. "I don't think it will until we get there. I can't wait to watch these guys on TV and think we'll be playing on the same rinks two weeks later."

On Tuesday, Connelly, 16, Jones, 18, and Hallman, 16, showed how they could neutralize their physical disabilities and overwhelm three NHL players who stuck around after practice to learn a thing or two about sled hockey. Strapped into sleds and given shortened sticks for each hand, Hatcher, Knuble and Esche proved no match for the teenage Paralympians.

"It's definitely a little different," Hatcher said. "I couldn't imagine playing a whole game on that thing. My abs are already sore."

Esche scored a hat trick for the Flyers' trio, but he admits it was only because he couldn't make his way up and down the ice.

Connelly, the youngest of the 15 players selected to the U.S. team, said it was "pretty awesome" to share the same ice with the Flyers. But he said his dominance over them was not surprising.

"It happens with all the able bodies," he said. "But they picked up pretty well."

Reach Chuck Gormley at cgormley@courierpostonline.com
Published: January 25. 2006 3:00AM