This has all the makings of a feel-good story. A real tearjerker. The type of true-life tale that gets turned into a movie and inspires a generation of filmgoers.

It stars a small-town boy who is born with a severe hearing impairment. He is practically deaf. Sleeps through thunderstorms. Fails to flinch when a whistle is blown inches away from his ears.

But his parents refuse to raise him differently and tell him there is nothing in life that he cannot do.

What he wants to do, he says, is be like every other Canadian kid and play hockey. At first, his mother is worried. Her son cannot hear the coach call out instructions, cannot hear his teammates call for a pass, cannot even hear the roar of the crowd.

Won’t he get hurt?

It turns out he’s a natural. It’s as if his other senses are making up for the one that he lacks. He leads his midget AAA team in scoring. He is drafted 11th overall into the Ontario Hockey League. He represents his country at the world under-18 championship.

And then, just when everything is going as well as it can, adversity strikes.

During the season in which he is eligible to be drafted into the National Hockey League, he suffers a high-ankle sprain that keeps him off skates for nearly eight weeks. When he is about to return, he contracts a staph infection from an ingrown hair and misses another two weeks. Shortly after, he separates his shoulder.

“The year from hell,” says his coach.

Indeed, he had once been considered a potential first- or second-round NHL draft choice. Now, Central Scouting does not even invite him to this week’s annual combine for the brightest young prospects. Some wonder if he will even get drafted.

Out of that mess is where we join Newmarket, Ont.’s Gregg Sutch.

What happens next has yet to be written. But, based on the first 18 years of his life, the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors forward has an idea how this story is going to unfold.

“I have been through much worse, and I know I can get through this,” Sutch says in a voice he constructed by studying other peoples’ lips.

“Look at where I am today. If it wasn’t for being able to deal with adversity I wouldn’t have been able to get through this position. I feel if you don’t work for anything and if you don’t battle through anything, you’re not going to get any reward.

“If it were easy, everybody would be doing it, right?”

Kim Sutch remembers when she first started to realize her son was having trouble hearing. Gregg was just an infant, maybe only nine months old. But even then, there were little signs that told her something was wrong.

Gregg would stare into space when his name was called. He would sleep through all kinds of loud noises. He would pick up a telephone receiver and move his lips like he was having a conversation, except no sound was coming out of his mouth.

“The final thing was when his uncle did one of those whistles with his fingers,” Kim remembers. “Everyone stopped what they were doing. But Gregg didn’t even turn his head.”

Sutch was taken to a hearing specialist, where it was discovered that his inner ear had been damaged. Doctors could not pinpoint the cause.

“It was just something that I was born with,” Gregg says. “Just bad luck, I guess. My ears just don’t function.”

Sutch is not completely deaf. But even with hearing aids, which he has been wearing since he was two years old, he ranks his hearing at about three or four out of 10. He lives a normal life by reading lips. But if he is not facing the person who is talking, he has no idea what is being said.

Still, he finds it offensive when people refer to him as deaf.

“I have a little bit of hearing,” he says. “And what the hearing aid does is it amplifies that. If I didn’t have a little bit of hearing then the hearing aid wouldn’t work. That would label me as deaf, and I wouldn’t be able to wear a hearing aid.

“That’s where a lot of people get confused. You would never call someone who was wearing glasses blind. You’re visually impaired. So somebody who is wearing a hearing aid is not deaf, he is hearing impaired.”

The thing is, aside from his hearing aids, you would never know that Sutch has difficulty hearing. He is an expert lip reader. And he speaks clearly and confidently.

“As you probably already know, he’s a talker,” his mother says.

He is also a bit of a joker. When asked if he knows sign language, Gregg says no, “except for the middle digit on our hands.”

On the ice, he is much more serious. Scouts describe the 6-foot-2, 190-pound winger as a prototypical power forward. “A real hard-nosed guy to play against,” Majors coach Dave Cameron says.

If he can, Sutch will use his disability to his advantage. He sometimes finishes checks long after the play has been blown dead by arguing that he did not hear the whistle. And despite wearing hearing aids, he does not hesitate in dropping the gloves.

“I can’t say enough good things about Gregg,” Cameron says. “I have guys with 100% hearing that don’t listen. Gregg was very coachable. He’s a great young man.”

Indeed, Sutch has become a role model for the hearing impaired. He writes a monthly blog for The Hockey News. And in June, he will be a guest speaker at a charity golf tournament for VOICE, an organization that supports hearing-impaired children.

His message to the kids is simple: Don’t listen to the criticism.

“I’ve been told so many times that I’m not going to be able to do this or that,” he says. “But I always take it as a challenge. All my life I have been proving people wrong.”

Gregg Sutch is sunburned. The other day he was relaxing in his parents’ backyard when he accidentally fell asleep. Four hours later, he awoke with second-degree burns covering his body.

This is what can sometimes happen when you close your eyes and get wrapped up in a blanket of silence. When you do not hear the everyday sounds of a lawn mower or chirping birds. When you need to be shaken awake.

“I’m purple,” says Sutch. “It’s really painful.”

The burn, like his disability and his unflattering draft ranking, is yet another obstacle. But he knows he will get through it. And when he does, Sutch knows that he will be a stronger person for it.

“Right now, I’m at position 101 in the draft,” he says. “I’m not going to say I agree with it. All I’m going to say is that I’m going to prove people wrong for putting me there.

“It’s all within yourself. If you want something badly enough, you can do it.”

Reported by Michael Traikos , National Post - nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=3084477

Rochester, NY, United States (AHN) - Ryan Ketchner has waited eleven years for a promotion to Major League Baseball, but Major League Baseball has been waiting more than a century for Ryan Ketchner.

Ketchner, a starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers AAA farm team, the Toledo Mud Hens, was born deaf. Hearing aids in each ear give him about 10 percent of an average person’s hearing.

They allow him to at least be aware someone is speaking and help with his outstanding lip-reading skills. Still, applause--and boos--from the crowd, calls of “I’ve got it,” on pop flies, and even the crack of the bat are lost on Ketchner.

“The only real problem we’ve seen, communication-wise, is him getting over to cover first on ground balls to the right side,” said Mud Hens manager Larry Parrish, a former big league All Star.

In Friday night’s start against the Rochester Red Wings, a Minnesota Twins affiliate, Ketchner didn’t get to first in time, colliding with the runner and the first baseman who had fielded the ball.

It was one of the few glitches, as Ketchner silenced the Wings bats over six shutout innings.

“He leads the league in tackles,” said Toledo pitching coach A.J. Sager of Ketchner’s late arrival to the bag. Both Parish and Sager list Ketchner’s inability to hear the crack of the bat as a possible reason that he’s a step late getting started.

Other than that, it’s business as usual for the hearing-impaired hurler. He gets no special treatment.

“The catcher has to take off his mask so I can read lips when he comes out to the mound to talk to me,” said Ketchner, “but he does that for everyone. And the pitching coach might need to talk a little slower for me.”

In fact, a Ketchner-pitched game looks like any other, with maybe fewer base runners than an average pitcher. Most fans in the stadium are unaware that they are seeing a baseball rarity.

Ketchner,28, is with his fourth organization since turning pro in 2000. He has made it to AAA with Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, and now Detroit.

A win Friday night moved him to 2-2 on the year with a 2.83 ERA. He was 2-0, 0.56 in a brief promotion to Toledo at the end of last season.

His Mud Hens tenure is the first time he has enjoyed sustained success at the AAA level, which puts him one step away from the majors.

Should Ketchner take that step, he’d be the first deaf big leaguer since 1908. Luther Taylor, who won 116 games for the Indians and Giants, was the last.

Showing just how long ago that was, Taylor’s nickname, like many deaf players at the start of the twentieth century, was “Dummy.”

One of the legends about Taylor’s big league tenure claims that his manager with the Giants learned sign language. One game, an umpire who was also fluent in sign realized that the pair were complaining about his calls and ejected both from the game.

Ketchner has never had a manager or pitching coach who could sign, although he looks forward to the possibility, saying that it would save them from having to take a trip to the mound to give advice.

Ketchner’s ability to read lips gives him another advantage, as well as a legend of his own. Supposedly, he can eavesdrop on conversations in opposing dugouts by reading lips across the diamond

“Sometimes,” admitted Ketchner, breaking into a wide mischievous grin. “The dugouts are a little far apart at this level, but in the lower minors, I could do it. My teammates would crowd around me asking, ‘What are they saying.’”

Did he ever pick up anything he could use in a game? The grin got even wider, if that’s possible. “Sometimes,” he said.

Curtis Pride, an outfielder for the Tigers and five other teams from 1993 to 2006, is the only deaf position player (i.e. non-pitcher) in the last 60 years. Pride served as an inspiration to Ketchner.

“I never knew that there was someone like me in baseball,” said Ketchner. “Then someone at my father’s work told him, and we went to see him play in a spring training game. I was in eighth grade.”

The two didn’t meet until a few years later, when Ketchner was in high school. “He came to see me pitch,” said Ketchner, his chest swelling with pride even more than a decade later. “He told me it was up to me. I could do it.”

Ketchner has taken the torch from Pride and now serves as an athletic role model for thousands of hearing-impaired children around the country. Groups of deaf children frequently attend his games, and Ketchner makes several appearances to meet with them on off days.

Every player in AAA wants to make it to the majors, but Ketchner feels a responsibility to serve as an example for the deaf community. “I want to show them they can do anything. Hopefully it will happen someday.”

The trip has been slowed by injury. When Ketchner started in the minors, he had a fastball in the 90-92 mph range. However, he needed “Tommy John” surgery to replace a ligament in his elbow, which caused him to miss the entire 2005 season.

When he returned, his fastball was gone, and Ketchner had to learn to rely on his offspeed pitches.

“He throws a good curve and change-up,” said Parrish, “which gets the hitters off balance and makes that 86 mph fastball look that much faster when he comes with it.”

Just another hurdle for an athlete who has cleared far higher ones.

Shawn Krest - AHN Sports Correspondent

Article from All Headline News

"I'm honored to be invited to throw out the first pitch and represent the entire motocross community as well as MX Sports as a member of Honda Red Bull Racing," boasted Fiolek, who currently has a 41-point lead in the WMX Class standings. "This is a tremendous opportunity and I just hope the pitch makes it to the catcher."

Fiolek's incredible story and exceptional talent on a motorcycle has been a significant boost to the exposure of women's motocross and the sport as a whole. American Motocross has reached new heights throughout the 2009 season and continues to grow as a part of mainstream sports, transcending into Major League Baseball this evening.

Kris Martin is an inspiration.

Born deaf but able to hear imperfectly with the use of a Cochlear implant, Martin has never let his impairment impede his resolve to oneday race NASCAR .

The 23-year-old's impressive journey so far on the road to the holy grail of Auto racing is also encouraging children across North Americato pursue their dreams. See his website

During May's Hearing Awareness Month, the Burlington resident will visit London, Ont., schoolchildren and speak at a Guelph Universityconference. He's in Toronto schools frequently and last year visitedseveral Hamilton schools. In 2007, he addressed 300 children at a Texasspeedway.

His message: don't limit yourself, you can make your dreams come true.

"Just follow your heart, follow your passions. That's why I chose racing. I knew I could do it."

Canadian Auto racing watchers believe Martin has what it takes toget to NASCAR . He's been racing in Ontario and the U.S. since age 16.In 2008, he had an impressive finish of seventh of 28 in a NorthCarolina Late Model ARCA race.

"Some have this fire in their eyes. He's one of them," says Tim Miller, The Spectator's motorsports writer.

"To do what he does is an admirable feat."

Canadian NASCAR legend Ron Fellows says Martin is a front-runningcompetitor who is aggressive and smart, and has excellent race tacticsand instincts.

"To do that while hearing impaired is pretty incredible."

Fellows thinks Martin, the only deaf driver he's knows of, will make it to NASCAR .

"He's a very promotable young man. He's bright, articulate -- forgethis disability. He's always smiling. He's a happy guy. And he's atalented race car driver as well."