The smile on Nizar Tahli’s face says it all as he shuffles along the ice.

“He’s only got two per cent vision, but he makes the most of what he has,” says Donna Gillies Marson, itinerant vision teacher for the Halton District School Board.

This is a really unique experience for Tahli, having just moved to Canada earlier this year from Syria. But even for the other 15 students who have grown up in Canada, the opportunity to put on skates and glide around the ice is a special occasion.

Since Courage Canada, now the Canadian Blind Hockey Association, held its first skate in Halton six years ago, it has continued to grow. And while some, like Tahli, were first-timers on skates, there are others like Eljesa Caka, a Grade 7 student at Alton Village P.S., who has taken part each year.

“The kids will start asking me in September, ‘When are we going skating?’” says Gillies Marson.

This year, students from Holy Trinity’s Hockey Focus phys. ed. class assisted the participants. And though the Trinity students themselves had just had three days of skating instruction, they were put to the test in conveying what they learned.

“It was a little more complicated because you had to be very descriptive in explaining how to do something,” said Emily Baxter.

Caka, who moved around with ease and stood out only because of the yellow Canadian Blind Hockey jersey she was wearing, said the high school students helped her with her turns.

Gary Steeves, president Canadian Blind Sports Association, said while the goal is teach skills and develop hockey players, he said there is still a bigger purpose even for those who will never pick up a hockey stick.

“We want to develop hockey players, but we also want to get them active. We want them to realize there is not anything you can’t do when you’re blind,” said Steeves, who founded Vancouver’s blind hockey program and continues to play net. “When I was in school, my class would go skating and I would go to the study room. I wanted to do what my sighted friends were doing.”