Travis Roy, born April 17th, 1975 in August, Maine is a retired American college ice hockey player. Roy attended Yarmouth High School, then transferred to North Yarmouth Academy, finally making his way to Tabor Academy and graduating with a scholarship to play hockey at Boston University. Roy, who was the top recruit of his class had dreams to play collegiately and was hopeful to one-day play professionally.
On October 20th, 1995—just eleven seconds in to his first shift ever for Boston University men’s hockey team, 20-year-old Roy slid head-first into the boards after checking University of North Dakota. The awkward impact with the boards resulted in Roy cracking his third and fourth vertebra and leaving him a quadriplegic. Since the accident, Roy has regained movement in his right arm.
Roy and Sports Illustrated writer E.M Swift wrote his autobiography, titled Eleven Seconds. His story is a drama of courage, determination, and the power of love, that would open up and astonishing new life for Roy and touch the heart of millions.
In 1997 he set up the Travis Roy Foundation to campaign for spinal cord injury research and to help spinal cord injury survivors. The Travis Roy Foundation has distributed more than $2.5 million in individual grants, research projects, and rehabilitation institutes across North America. The individual grant funds have been used to modify vans and to purchase wheelchairs, computers, ramps, shower chairs and other adaptive equipment to help paraplegics and quadriplegics.
In 1998, the North Yarmouth Academy Ice Arena was named in his honor and his number,00, was retired, in 1999 his number 24 was retired at Boston University. Roy is the only player at BU to be honored with a retired jersey.
According to the Travis Roy Foundation, The Foundation is uniquely positioned to touch individual lives with its focus on providing adaptive equipment and sponsoring research. In the US alone, there are approximately 250,000 people currently living with a spinal cord injury and 13,000 new injuries each year.
Roy holds an annual WIFFLE ball tournament that meets at Little Fenway in Essex, Vermont, to share a weekend of magic developed around a backyard WIFFLE Ball tournament. The tournament is the culmination of a yearlong effort by hundreds of Travis supporters who are focused on shortening the path to a cure for spinal cord injuries and helping spinal cord injured survivors, who are in need of adaptive equipment improve their quality of life. Today, Roy travels the country to share his story and his messaging to a variety of different audiences. He is inspiring and his courage and optimism has been inspiring many for years. Roy is the son of Lee Roy and Brenda Roy.
