BRANDON, Fla — Josh Schichtl is told he looks a little like Capitals star Alex Ovechkin.

“Oh really?” he asks. “That’s actually my favorite team.”

Schichtl, 33, grabs a fake set of teeth out of the bottom part of his bearded jaw. The captain of the Tampa Warriors veteran’s hockey team sports a smile that fits the sport.

But Schichtl also wears the scars of a decade in the Army. There’s his glass right eye, inserted during one of the 50 surgeries Schichtl had after his unit was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2008. Shrapnel soared up through his mouth and took out his eye.

It nearly took his life.

“They brought me back twice,” Schichtl said. “I don’t remember any of it.”

Schichtl woke up three days later at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. His life went into a spiral. There were pills. There was drinking. Then a buddy called, asking him if he wanted to go skating with him for the U.S. Warriors, a team of made up of veterans who sustained a combat injury or received a disability rating from the Veteran’s Administration.

Schichtl got back on the ice and has never left.

“I was in a really bad place,” he says. “And (the Warriors) helped get me out.”

Josh Schichtl

Schichtl is not alone. He and Charles Ehm helped start the Tampa Warriors last November, and the group has grown to 60 active players. They practice once a week at the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon, playing games almost every weekend (against either a local beer league team or club from the police or fire department). They’ll have more opportunities in October when the Lightning begin a “Heroes League” — a 10-week 4-on-4 schedule involving veterans, policemen, firemen and doctors.

The Warriors drive from as far as Fort Myers, skill ranges from beginner to former junior player. And they drive their wives crazy with how much they communicate on their group chat on the app “Crew.”

“You always hear ‘bing, bing, bing,” said Claire Sutton, wife of defenseman Sean Sutton. “I’m like, ‘you’re worse than girls.'”

In the Warriors, the veterans find the type of camaraderie they’ve been missing since their years of service embedded in incredibly-tight units. They find a purpose and support group as they navigate the tough transition to civilian life. And, for some, they’ve found themselves again.

“Joining civilian life was harder than doing Army time,” said Sean Sutton, a retired staff sergeant from Lutz. “Coming out (to the Warriors), I feel like I can trust everybody there. Even if I meet someone for the first time, I don’t feel concerned, I can trust him to watch my back, watch my kids, watch my gear. It’s immediate high-level trust. It’s an acceptance that he knows what you’ve been through. There’s no stigma. No concern. If he notices I’m walking with a limp, you don’t have to explain. You’re openly accepted, no problem.

“It’s like being part of a unit again.”

Sean Sutton grew up playing roller hockey in the streets of Royal Oak, Michigan. He loved the Red Wings.

But he didn’t start playing the sport formally until he got out of the Army in 2014, having experienced deployments to Kuwait and Korea. Sean Sutton needed something. The father of two was antisocial, aloof.

Sean Sutton took his daughter, Abigail, 8, to a “Lightning Made” hockey event for a girl’s camp a few months back. He saw a flyer for the Tampa Warriors and said that it felt like “the clouds opened up and the sun started shining.” He signed up right away, asking the Lightning if he could have the same number as his daughter.

“Adjusting to civilian life was very difficult for him,” said Claire Sutton. “He struggled mentally, physically, emotionally. All of it. But now that he’s found this group of guys, he’s turned into a different guy. He’s really come out of his shell and is enjoying life again.”

Sean Sutton was holding court with a handful of Warriors teammates Friday night in the hallway of the Ice Sports Forum as they got ready for their game against a Brandon beer league team. Jim Karr, 41, a former Army interrogator, was taping his stick on a chair next to him.

Jim Karr

Karr played club hockey at the University of Nebraska before spending 12 years in the Army, five years in reserve and now four years as a Navy officer. He deployed for the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I redeployed in 2003, 2004 and 2005, got blown up in 2005 and came home, went back to active duty in 2007 after I rehabbed,” he said.

Wait, “blown up?”

The Warriors throw around that term as casually as NHL players bring up blocked shots.

“I was on a balcony and an RPG blew the balcony and I fell three stories,” Karr said. “I had a shoulder and brain injury. Actually got pretty lucky. Really lucky.”

Karr joined the Warriors two months ago and loved it, especially how they pick on each other mercilessly. Seemingly on cue, Karr tried rolling a white cooler of Yuengling and Labatt Blue beers to the dressing room when it spilled.

“Ah, of course, the officer,” Schichtl quipped.

“Here we go!” Sean Sutton said.

Joshua Hurst

Joshua Hurst walks over to the group with his equipment bag.

“Hurt!” a few yell out his nickname.

Hurst, 33, joined a few months ago having never played hockey before. This would be just his second game. The group ended up being his saving grace. He was in the Marines for eight years, with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hurst, who grew up in Mims, Florida, struggled once he returned in 2011 to find consistent employment. He started at a technical institute in Orlando but was told he didn’t have enough work experience to land a job.

Two years later, he was midway through an associate’s degree at DeVry University when they closed their Tampa campus. Back to square one again. His fiancee, Nicole, was working full-time, but they had two kids in high school.

“Ever since I got out [of the Marines], I’ve had my ups and downs, but I had never peaked up,” he said. “I always had some small fricken step [forward] and nine steps down, it was a downward progression for the last five, six, seven years. A buddy of mine suggested the Warriors and that we should check it out.”

The Warriors helped Hurst find a job as a technician for Shock Wave Technologies, where he helps assemble firearms. He is learning hockey on the fly, with teammates joking he’s the leader in penalty minutes.

“Every one of them was worth it,” Schichtl joked.

Hurst says the Warriors helped him take a “complete 180” in his life.

“Hockey, the sport itself, has allowed me to not focus on the negative things in my life,” Hurst said. “Now I have an outlet. I can go and skate and play sports and not have to worry about the things that are negative influences, like ‘look, I’ve got another bill to pay.’ To have this and brothers and sisters who have been in the same place as me, it’s nothing like being in a civilian room.”

Joe Guz

Schichtl sits on a blue and white cooler in the middle of the cramped Warriors dressing room and sifts through his notebook.

The captain isn’t playing in this game, which is meant for more of the beginner-types. He goes around the room as his teammates put on their uniforms, which are, fittingly, a mix of black, red, white and blue. Players pay for their own gear, but most local rinks give the Warriors a significant discount on ice time. The Lightning donated signed memorabilia, like a Nikita Kucherov stick, to help the 501(c)(3) organization raise funds.

Guys volunteer to play certain positions, up front or on defense. There’s a small crowd gathered in the stands by the south rink. Mostly wives and children who take turns whipping a plastic puck around with their miniature stick. The place was packed a month ago when the Warriors faced a team of local police.

They’ll play three, 15-minute periods, with two referees on hand to make it official. Beers and brotherhood await the group afterwards. But, right now, it’s game on.

One by one, they take the ice. There’s only one name on the back of each jersey.

“Non Duror.”

The loose Latin translation is, well, fitting.

“None Tougher.”