Ward fights back from a career-threatening injury

For Sam Ward, that day came in 2019, during Great Britain’s Olympic qualifier against Malaysia. The British forward was struck full in the face by an 80 kph shot from teammate Harry Martin. The impact left him with facial fractures and cost him 70% of the vision in his left eye.

“I had my face taken off. My whole face. They cut, like, the whole way over the top of the head. There’s a scar straight through. They take your face off and rebuild it,” he said at the ongoing Hockey India League (HIL) here on Wednesday.

“Four or five (metal) plates. Thirty-one screws.” All still there.

A mask has become part of his playing identity. “It’s to protect the good eye. You don’t want to go blind completely,” said the HIL GC player.

Retirement felt inevitable, but an “inner fight” refused to let go. Ward had to retrain his brain for depth perception.

“So, one of your eyes is more dominant. That will pick up the depth, and the other one sees. And obviously, as soon as you lose the depth side of it, which I did, then you’ve got to kind of retrain the brain, and it kind of refocuses and sees things coming at different speeds and stuff.

“You’ve got to retrain the brain for depth perception. I had to stop a lot of hockey balls. Lots of trapping. Even just catching, just seeing balls,” he explained.

In February last year, Ward became the highest goal-scorer for England or Great Britain, a milestone that underlined his ability to evolve after trauma.

Standing on the pitch today — mask on, vision reset, hunger intact — he represents choice. The choice to continue, to adapt, and to believe that even when one way of seeing the world is lost, another can still be learned.