Former Tornado:  2003/2004    
 

Todd Sheridan Named SUNYAC Award of Valor Recipient for 2007  Brockport Golden Eagles Athletics

Freshman goalie Todd Sheridan (Edison, NJ) has been selected as the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Award of Valor recipient for 2007. He was honored at an awards dinner Monday night as part of the SUNYAC Annual Meetings in Syracuse.

Todd Sheridan Named SUNYAC Award of Valor Recipient
Freshman goalie honored at SUNYAC Awards dinner
May 14, 2007
 

Sheridan was playing for the Sarnia Blast in the Canadian Junior B League in 2005. The goalie was named the Canadian Junior B MVP the same year and was looking for a college to continue his career when he found a lump on his neck.

After a surgery on April 17, 2005 to remove a possible infected lymph node on his neck, the life-altering news came back that the lump was cancer. After learning the doctors only cut half of the cancerous lump out, Sheridan decided to change doctors and visited the University of Pennsylvania. He soon learned the primary source of the cancer was his tongue, which increased his chances of living up to 70 percent. The goalkeeper went ahead with surgery that was called a modified radial neck dissection where they cut from the chin to the ear to the shoulder along with removing a half-dollar sized portion of his tongue.

Sheridan began a six-week cycle of radiation and chemotherapy in the summer of 2005, three weeks after surgery. Doctors told him he would never play hockey again, but only three weeks after the final round of radiation he was back on the ice with his old team, the Sarnia Blast. Although he did not see any action, SUNY Brockport Head Coach Brian Dickinson took a chance on the prospect.

On October 20th, 2006 Sheridan made the comeback as the freshman goalie for the Golden Eagles and made the start against Cortland in the SUNYAC Challenge Hockey Tournament. It took only one more day for the freshman to pick up his first collegiate victory as the Golden Eagles beat Buffalo State 5-3. Sheridan finished with 21 saves and the win.

Sheridan played in 16 games and started 15 and battled an upper leg injury that kept him out of the lineup for 10 games this season. He finished with a 4-5-4 overall record and stopped 379 shots for a .881 save percentage and had a 3.51 goals against average. He helped Brockport to its best record in nine years at 7-11-7 and a berth in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Tournament for the first time since the 1999 season.

With the help of Sheridan, the SUNY Brockport Ice Hockey team has created a “Saves for a Cure” fundraiser where companies donate money for every save made by a Brockport goalie, with all funds being donated to the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester.

To complete the comeback, Sheridan was named to the 2007 All-USCHO Division III Ice Hockey East All-Rookie Team.

“I think hockey saved my life,” says Sheridan. “Dealing with pressure since I was five years old… For me, I wasn’t supposed to ever play hockey again, barely live, and less than a year later I’m playing Division III hockey. If telling my story helps, then I’ll tell it forever, no matter what they say, just keep fighting.”

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