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Constable: South Elgin High School junior makes Deaflympics team

By the time Derek Struwing discovered he was hearing-impaired, he already knew he was a hockey player. The Bartlett boy was around 3 years old when his parents, Dan and Marcia Struwing, drove him to the old Dundee Polar Dome in East Dundee, where they helped him lace up his skates for the first time.

“And now, here he is at 17, going to Russia,” Dan Struwing says of his son.

When the USA Hockey Team competes in the 2015 Winter Deaflympics starting in March in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, Derek will be one of the youngest players on the ice wearing the red, white and blue. At 5 feet 7 inches and 150 pounds, he's also one of the smallest. But, just like the Blackhawks' Patrick Kane, Derek is a fast winger who scores goals.

A forward on the Geneva Cyclones team that plays at the Fox Valley Ice Arena, Derek traveled to Buffalo, New York, for the Deaflympics tryouts in August, two months before his 17th birthday.

“It's pretty competitive. Most players are in their upper teens or lower 20s,” Derek says. By the end of the tryouts, Derek was playing with the top line for two games at historic Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto against the Canadian Deaflympics team.

“The speed of play is faster. They're bigger,” Derek says. “I took some hits against Canada.”

His team lost both games, but Derek scored three goals and notched three assists. Teammates told him he was a lock to make the squad, but Derek didn't take anything for granted.

“I thought because of my age and size, I was iffy,” he admits. Friends texted him at midnight when the American Hearing Impaired Hockey Association website posted the Deaflympics roster in an online newsletter, and Derek rushed in to break the great news to his parents. That joy would have been hard to imagine more than a decade ago, when Derek got his first hearing aids.

“Worst day of my life,” remembers Marcia Struwing. She and her husband say they felt guilty for not recognizing Derek's problem sooner. They had talked to their doctor about concerns with Derek's speech, but didn't realize he'd been deaf from birth.

“I would take him to the pediatrician, and he would talk funny,” his mom says. Told Derek was fine, his parents didn't learn that their son had less than half of normal hearing in both ears until Derek was in kindergarten, and he was fitted for hearing aids.

“To be honest with you, I don't remember that. As long as I remember, I've been wearing them,” Derek says of his hearing aids. As a very athletic kid, though, he didn't always finish games with them.

“I won't tell you the stories about walking through a muddy field after a soccer game or looking through garbage at a hockey rink, looking for a lost hearing aid,” says Marcia Struwing, who notes her son just lost one this week.

Sports helped Derek fit in with his hearing classmates, his parents say. Opponents probably have no idea that he is hearing-impaired.

“For me, it's easier to hear on the ice because it's an enclosed space. But I can't really hear when people yell out for the puck,” Derek says.

A good baseball player and a better soccer player, Derek gave up those sports to concentrate on hockey. His sister, Ella, 15, is a soccer player. His grandfather, Marty Struwing, 73, of Bartlett, who has been wearing hearing aids since he was in his 40s, played football in college. Derek's father played hockey while at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights and for one year of college. A goalie, Dan Struwing had childhood dreams of playing in the National Hockey League, until the day he faced off against one player during tryouts for a good club team.

“I could not stop a single shot of his, so he ended my career,” Dan Struwing says.

That other player was Tony Granato, who grew up in Downers Grove with his hockey legend sister, Cammie, before carving out a nice career as an NHL player, coach and current assistant coach for the Detroit Red Wings. In a nice twist of fate, the Struwings credit Granato for Derek's spot in the Deaflympics.

Granato heads the American Hearing Impaired Hockey Association, a Chicago-based hockey camp started in 1973 by former Blackhawks legend Stan Mikita and Irv Tiahnybik, a businessman with a deaf son who loved hockey. The organization hosts hearing-impaired players from around the nation for an annual camp. Derek, who has been attending every year since he was 7, says it is fun to play with others “like me.”

“The only difference really is the communication on the ice,” Derek says. “You can't yell. It's more visual.”

Players pound their sticks on the ice to catch a teammate's eye. At the Deaflympics, the referee whistles and horns are replaced by strobe lights. Instead of cheering, the crowd waves. No hearing aids or external cochlear implant parts are permitted.

Derek's old soccer team once played in a tournament in London during spring break, but the Deaflympics isn't just a sightseeing trip. The competition is fierce. He'll work out with his Deaflympics teammates at a camp in New York before he leaves for Russia. How will that mesh with his academic schedule at South Elgin High School?

“I don't know,” he says, forcing a smile. “We'll find out.”

Grandparents Marty and Barb Struwing, his parents and his sister (depending on her school and soccer schedule) plan to attend the Deaflympics, which run from March 28 through April 5 and also include cross-country skiing, snowboarding, curling and alpine skiing.

Legendary hockey coach Jeff Sauer, whose University of Wisconsin teams won two NCAA championships, commands the Deaflympics USA Hockey team, which won the gold medal at the most recent Deaflympics. Sauer also coached the U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey team, which won a gold medal at the games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

“Whatever it takes,” Sauer says in his newsletter to the Deaflympics players. “Let's go to work.”

Derek, who says he might like to play hockey in college, considers that work just part of playing the game he loves. Next time he plays in an international competition, it might even be closer to home. U.S. officials are hoping to host the 2017 World Deaf Hockey Championships at Seven Bridges Ice Arena in Woodridge. In the meantime, he'll continue playing with his hearing teammates.

“It is,” Derek says, “all hockey.”

  Kneeling closest so he can hear his coach with the Geneva Cyclones hockey team, Derek Struwing also attends an annual camp with the American Hearing Impaired Hockey Association. In March, the Bartlett teen will be part of the USA hockey team competing for a gold medal at the 2015 Deaflympics in Russia. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
  Hearing-impaired since birth, Derek Struwing, a South Elgin High School junior, will be playing hockey for the U.S. team in the Deaflympics in Russia. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
  Younger, smaller and faster than most of his teammates, 17-year-old Derek Struwing of Bartlett will play for the U.S. hockey team in the 2015 Deaflympics in Russia. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
Having worn skates longer than he's had his hearing aids, Derek Struwing, No. 23, celebrates his goal during tryouts that saw the 17-year-old Bartlett player earn a spot on the USA team. He and his hearing-impaired teammates will be playing in the 2015 Deaflympics in Russia. Courtesy Struwing family
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