Back in the Game

Dean, 35, is back on the ice this season after open surgery to repair his unstable shoulder. "If the sport or any activity involved lifting my arm too far from my body, I couldn't do it without it dislocating." An on-ice injury eight years ago resulted in frequent and painful shoulder dislocations, eventually forcing him to hang up his goalie pads. "The risk of dislocation affected everything. What motivated me to finally see a surgeon was wanting to play sports with my 8-year-old son without pain or fear of injury." Dr. Erin Boynton of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital reattached his ligaments and repaired fractures from the repeated dislocations. After a few weeks of rehab, Dean laced up his son's skates - and his own - for his son's hockey try-outs this fall. Dean smiles, "It's like there was never anything wrong!"