There are fans. There are super fans. And then, there’s the great Katrina King. You're gonna love her!

The 30-year-old from western Massachusetts has missed only three home games in fifteen years of cheering for Springfield’s American Hockey League (AHL) team. That alone is impressive, but having cerebral palsy, using a wheelchair, and being legally blind make it even more so. And the reason she missed those three games? Surgeries due to her health conditions. Nothing else would have kept her away.

For most of those years, Katrina couldn’t even see the games she attended because her vision was limited to just a few feet. She went anyway because she loved the team, the mascots, the atmosphere, the music, and the excitement of hockey in this town that has supported the game since 1926. Katrina was so devoted that, after the games, she went home and watched them on a big-screen TV where she could sit close to see and learn.

Last season, her home team, the Springfield Thunderbirds, missed the playoffs, but she’s okay with rooting for the underdog—after all, she’s one, too.

Born with cerebral palsy and unable to breathe on her own as a newborn, doctors prepared her parents, saying she wouldn’t survive. Her dad, Rick, said the family sat in the hospital, devastated and in tears. Then, he suddenly saw an angel appear in the corner - female in form, big with bright white wings. “It just made me feel that everything was gonna be okay,” Rick said.

Katrina survived those first days, but then doctors prepared her parents again, this time saying they should consider leaving her there to be institutionalized because she would never walk, talk, or do much of anything. Instead, her determined parents took her home to love and support her. With the help of Shriner’s Hospital, she thrived - and proved those doctors wrong.

After recently meeting Katrina, I can tell you she has no problem talking—my kind of girl! She speaks with confidence and enthusiasm. She’s funny and positive. And she has loved hockey since her first game when the Zamboni broke down on the ice, adding excitement and a chance to meet the mascot during the break. She was hooked.

Going to games soon turned into playing sled hockey with a volunteer pushing her and telling her where the puck was until it was close enough for her to see it.

One season, a new coach asked for a volunteer to be goalie, and Katrina’s hand went up. She figured she could rely on short vision and hockey instincts to help her team. She actually held her own from in close, but then the coach took shots from farther away. “They found out I was legally blind and kicked me out of goal,” she told me with a laugh.

Now, her team shares the same ice and name as the AHL Thunderbirds. Katrina loves that and getting to know some of the pro players. A while back, one of them, Mitch Fritz, taught Katrina how to lift the puck with her stick. It took her three years to master it. Fritz is long gone, but she has never forgotten him.

The team hasn’t forgotten her either. In 2018, the Springfield Thunderbirds surprised her with pricey, special goggles that allowed her to see the action. “I had no idea they were doing this,” Katrina said. “It was pretty cool!”

Then she used the goggles to watch her first sunset. On a family trip to upstate New York, she looked west, across Lake Ontario to Toronto. It took her breath away. “I never knew a sunset had so many different colors. I could only see blurs of orange and red before.”

Then, when the twinkling lights of Toronto shone in the distance, she began singing, “O Canada,” with a broad smile covering her face.

Katrina gives back, too, volunteering for Springfield Thunderbirds charity events, Springfield Hockey Heritage Society events, and at the local zoo. During the holidays, she makes cookies and fudge for older people without families. And she runs a Facebook Page, Springfield Hockey News. Be sure to cheer her on with a like and a follow!

It’s all pretty darned impressive for someone doctors said wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“It’s awful she’s got cerebral palsy,” Katrina’s dad said. “It’s awful she’s got blindness. But I’d like to hope that through it all, she’s got a good life going for her.”

I think that’s something every fan can agree on as we cheer for team Katrina!