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The
News-Herald
A Heritage
Newspaper
Twice Weekly Publication |
'Miracle on ice'
Boy with no feet is hockey whiz, to be featured on
upcoming TV show
By Paula Evans Neuman
PUBLISHED: March 7,
2004
TV producer Christopher Ewing calls Josh Pobursky, 14, of
Allen Park the “real miracle on ice.”
Josh is a hockey player — a really good hockey player — with Allen
Park’s youth travel team.
He was so good on the ice that he was able to hide his secret from
his coach for months, Ewing said.
The secret, which to Josh is really no big deal, is that both his
feet were amputated when he was just 13 months old.
Josh wears prosthetic feet, but the only way anyone can tell is if
he’s wearing shorts, said his mother, Kim Pobursky.
He’s a “typical kid,” she said, a “good kid,” who’s a normal
student. “He’s quiet, but he’s got a lot of friends,” she said.
“Hockey is his forte. He would do hockey every day of his life if he
could.”
Josh was born with feet so badly deformed they “were beyond
fixing,” Pobursky said.
His medical help came from the Moslem Shrine Temple, who took him
to a Shrine Hospital in Chicago for the amputation and his artificial
feet and legs that go to his knees. He continues to get adjustments
and treatment there.
“When I had Josh, I thought I was the only one,” Pobursky said. “I
thought, ‘What am I going to do?’ We didn’t have any money.”
The Shriners are a godsend, she said, and Josh is a favorite at the
Chicago hospital.
But all that is normal life for him. No big deal
“We’ve never used it — I don’t even call it a handicap — as an
attention grabber,” Pobursky said. “He’s normal.”
Ewing, who produces award-winning children’s programming, heard
about Josh when he was featured on a local broadcast a few years ago.
He was putting together a TV show, “Hang On To The Dream,” he hopes to
syndicate. Sponsors are already lined up.
The show is about extraordinary kids, the “unsung young heroes of
the world,” Ewing said.
“We ambush them and give them stuff. With all the negative things
on TV, all the ridiculous reality shows, I thought this is the
ultimate reality show.”
So he contacted Pobursky, and they figured out how to “ambush” Josh
at Allen Park High School and make his dream come true. The “ambush”
took place recently.
“The teacher told him he had had to come to the counselor’s
office,” Ewing said. “He thought he was in trouble.”
But when Josh got to the office, a group of his friends were there,
his family, a film crew and Ewing, who told the teen he was going to
be able to meet his idol, retired hockey goalie Patrick Roy.
Roy left the Colorado Avalanche recently and now owns a hockey team
in Quebec. Josh leaves on Thursday for the Canadian city, where he’ll
meet Roy and skate with him.
“Josh got the surprise of his lifetime,” Pobursky said with a
laugh. “It was awesome, it really was. He is excited, but he’s trying
not to show it.” Ewing will film Josh and Roy in Quebec, and he’ll
also interview the famous goalie about what it was like for him as a
teen-ager. The interview will be part of the show.
Ewing also is forming a nonprofit foundation for kids who aren’t
featured on the show, so he can help “thousands of kids,” he said. To
learn more, visit
www.hangontothedream.com.
What makes Josh so special, so worthy of being featured, is how he
can inspire other kids, Ewing said.
“It’s not because he’s got no legs,” he said. “It’s to say to all
the kids who think, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t do that,’ — oh yeah?
Look at this kid. He’s moved on, this guy. He’s just an outstanding
kid!”
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