First I'd like to take a minute to introduce myself.  My name is Brad Emmerson, I am 22 years old, from Amherst, New York. On December 16, 1985 I was born without complication and everything went smoothly, but not too much later, my parents noticed something wasn't quite right. Even though my parents had taken me to several doctors, I wasn't diagnosed until I was two years old. So my parents had finally found out what was wrong, they were told that I had cerebral palsy from the waist down. Cerebral palsy comes in many different forms, in my case it only affects me from my waist down.

Through my life I have had many surgeries to try to correct some of the problems that I had and would have down the line. The worst that I had to get done was when I was thirteen, we were told that bones were rubbing together in my hips and that if we didn't correct the problem the bone would eventually wear through. I went through a nine hour procedure that included cutting my lower right leg in half and straightening the bone, then putting it back together with a plate and a few screws. Then, the doctors moved on to loosening my hamstrings and straightening my hips.

Working on my hips took so long that they had to stop the procedure after only getting one side done, or there would have been a risk of causing permanent brain damage because I had been on the medication keeping me asleep for too long. So, after some rehab and a little time to heal up, we went back in to finish the job and five hours later it was finally all over. Now, for the third time in my life I had to learn how to walk all over again.

When my brother was only two years old my dad put him on a pair of skates. That shows you how much we love hockey in our family.  So, from almost the day I was born hockey was a part of my life, but I spent most of my time watching my brother play and being a water boy on his teams. One day, a coach of my brother's had an idea - his brother was the head coach of a sled hockey team in Buffalo where I lived. So, he told my parents and I all about it and it certainly didn't take long to convince me to try it out. On the very next Saturday we drove up to the rink to give it a shot. I hopped in a sled and took a few laps around the ice, and from the first few strides that I took, I fell in love with a type of hockey that most people had never seen before. It was a sport that I had always loved and now one that, at the age of 10, I could finally play for myself.

After playing for a few years on our junior team, my family and I decided that it was time for me to join the local adult team so I could get a more competitive level of play. Our team was, for the most part, an older group and it was a little strange at the age of 15 to be playing with a few guys my dad's age. But, playing against more experienced players helped me grow not only as a player, but as a person as well.

At this point in time, my family and I didn't even know about the national sled hockey program. But, I got my first taste of it in 2002 when the national team had one of its tryouts just around the corner from where I lived. We drove up to watch one of the practice sessions and to cheer on one of my teammates who was trying out for the U.S. team. His name is Chris Manns and after a long tryout process he eventually made the team and was one of the players that went to the 2002 Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. I followed those games as closely as I could and watched the United States eventually win the gold medal. From that point on, I knew that if it was even going to be a chance for me to make it to that level it was going to take a lot of work.

My first experience playing at the international level came about a year later when I was 17 years old. The U.S. coach at the time was Rick Middleton and he asked me to travel with the team to play a game against Canada. We ended up losing that game, but the experience of not just being asked to travel with the team but to play as well was a dream come true. That was the last trip that I went on with the national team until I tried out and eventually made the U.S. squad for the first time in 2003.

After winning a bronze medal at the 2004 world championships that took place in Sweden, my quest for my first Paralympic medal began. After two years of training and pushing myself as hard as I possibly could, the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy seemed to come in the blink of an eye. My moment had finally come to join my teammates and battle for what we hoped would be a gold medal. After our round robin play and a rough loss to Norway, we faced off against Germany for the bronze. We ended up winning the game and even though it wasn't what we had hoped for, having a Paralympic medal placed around my neck and standing with my teammates looking into the stands watching every single person clapping and screaming was one of the best experiences I have ever had.

After winning another bronze medal at last year's world championships, our team has re-grouped to prepare for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver.  This past weekend in Colorado Springs we had one of our first training camps of the season. Coming into Colorado, we had two of our key team members staying home with injuries. Everyone was happy and excited to be back together, and knew it was going to be a long three days of training.

On the first day, three of my teammates and I had to do a talk in front of a big group of people involved with Paralympic winter sports. They asked us a bunch of questions about our sports, as well as our lives. After speaking, we went back and had a fast lunch before our first practice. Coach Ray Maluta had us working and skating hard from the moment we sat in our sleds and got on the ice. We had five very good and productive practices.  Our new, young players gained a lot of experience and our new lines seemed to gain a lot of confidence with each other in a short, but very busy and compact, three days.

We now have three weeks to heal up and to get into game shape for our first tournament of the new season. We will be heading north to Canada to compete in the Four Nations Challenge against Canada, Norway and Germany.  It's a chance for the top four teams in the world to get together and see where we stack up at this point.