Roy Foundation Wiffle tourney raises record amount

ESSEX, Vt. — Before he lost the use of his limbs, before he ever came to Little Fenway, before he helped turn this tiny mountain town into Wiffle ball Heaven, Travis Roy was a hockey player. So it’s fitting he evokes a sticks-and-skates metaphor as he addresses a crowd from the Little Fenway pitcher’s mound.

More than 1,500 people gathered this weekend at the Green Mountains facility, notable for its unique architectural nods to baseball history, to play baseball in its most accessible form. But they’re here because of Roy’s story, and that starts on the ice.

“I remember being a 6-year old boy shooting pucks in my backyard with big dreams,” Roy said. “I just hoped one day I could play college hockey. It was such a dream for me.”

Roy fulfilled that dream, to unfortunate results. Roy took the ice for Boston University, the defending national champions, as a freshman in 1995. Eleven seconds into his first shift, the blonde-haired 20-year-old lunged into the boards looking for a check. He never got up.

 Travis Roy Foundation Tournament

Roy still lives as a quadriplegic, 21 years after fracturing his fourth and fifth vertebrae that night. Two years later he began the Travis Roy Foundation to raise money for spinal cord injury research. Since 2001, the organization and Little Fenway Park have been linked, the annual summer Wiffle ball tournament …

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