By Gary Beech

It was invented back in 1946 to help rehabilitate World War Two vets who suffered visual impairments.

Kyle Pelly is Executive Director of the Ontario Blind Sports Association and says Goalball is a simple game that needs three players and a ball, that’s the size of a basketball with bells inside.

Every player wears eye-shades so they have to rely on their hearing and sense of touch.

Pelly says sighted and visually-impaired people can both play the game together.

He hopes to establish clubs and leagues in Greater Sudbury.

For the past several days Pelly’s team along with several people from the CNIB have been showing off Goalball to students and residents during various sessions.

So far Pelly is pleased with the response.

He says many people trying it out for the first time don’t realize how difficult it is.

There are high-level elite teams across the province, but Pelly says its important to grow the sport at the grassroots level, with clubs and leagues at the local level.

For more information you can go to www.blindsports.on.ca

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 at 1:14 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.