Life through the lens of Yannick Veilleux

LAVAL - A mix of myopia, farsightedness and lots of astigmatism… not terms often associated with hockey players; even less so when they all refer to the same eye. On the eye a professional hockey player, no less.

And yet that's exactly the case for Yannick Veilleux, who has managed to make a living playing his favorite sport despite only having 50% vision in his left eye.
For the Laval Rocket player, the weakened vision is far from a handicap; at 50%, he even considers it to be a plus.
"It's from birth. When I was born, my vision was about 10-12% and when I started walking, my parents realized what the problem was. I was walking into walls, I fell down stairs, I wasn't able to pick up my glass of milk. I had until age six to improve my vision, so starting at two years old, I would wear a patch on my right eye - my stronger eye - in order to strengthen my left one," explained Veilleux, who cracked a smile in admitting he was a "little pirate" as a child. "I wore it from ages two to six."

The patch - which was often decorated with his favorite superheroes so that he, too, would feel like one, and to help prevent teasing from friends - allowed him to improve his vision to 50%. It's the best he'd be able to do; to this day, the condition cannot be fixed by surgery.
"When I was younger, it was a really particular case. At the beginning, I would go maybe every week to the hospital with my mom, and I often had McGill students come to study me because it was such a unique case. So I could be on the table for two or three hours, and people with lights would come look at me," recalled the 24-year-old forward, who wears glasses in everyday life to prevent his "strong" eye from over-exerting and causing him headaches. "Later, it was just once a week, then once every three weeks, once a month, and now, I just go for my annual exam."
Others see his right-eye vision as half-masked. But Veilleux sees things differently - in every sense of the term.
"When I'm on the ice, for me, it's like I have 100% vision because I've always seen like that," he noted. "I don't notice that my vision is different when my right eye is open."
That said, he's still had to deal with a blind spot.
"The truth is, I see everything on the ice, but it's blurred. So I know there's a red jersey, but I don't necessarily know who it is. I still know if it's a righty or a lefty. I've always been used to that. The doctor says that my peripheral vision is not as wide and it's true that it's a bit more narrow than on the other side, but that's how I've always seen," he affirmed.
"It's not something that's bothered me too much."

Once he understood he had the talent to make a career out of hockey, the big question became whether he should keep his condition to himself, or leave it out in the open. Especially once he was drafted - the Blues picked him in the fourth round in 2011, 102nd overall.
"When I got to Junior, my dad told me not to talk about it, but I was thinking, 'This is who I am!'" he recounted. "I didn't consider myself to be handicapped compared to others, because I was always that way."
Still, he kept it a secret.
"When I got to the pro's, I remember at the start of Blues camp - the same thing happens in Montreal - where you have to read the letters from far, one by one, while the other players are waiting in line right next to you," remembered Veilleux. "The players were surprised to see that I couldn't see anything as soon as I covered my left eye, even on the second line. They were saying, 'Come on! Those are the big letters!' Other than that, it hasn't really affected me."
Veilleux asserts that his eye hasn't affected his game, either. If there is a difference, it's when he fights, because dropping the gloves is a part of his game. He admits that his mother isn't really happy about it, so when he's trading punches, he makes the effort to protect his right eye.
"The times when I was getting hit near the left eye, I would think to myself, 'I don't see out of that eye anyway!'" he cracked.
Despite it all, Veilleux does proceed with plenty of caution.
"That's why my visors are are bit thicker. A stick to the face wouldn't just change my career, it would change my life, too - be it for driving, going to work, anything," said Veilleux, who would've liked to have been a policeman if not for his vision. "So it's something I definitely have to pay attention to, but I don't think about it all the time.
Veilleux has also learned how to compensate for his reduced vision. But it all comes so naturally to him that he couldn't even say if he acts any differently on the ice - if he finds himself turning more to see better, for example.
"It's like a blind person who, at the end of the day, develops their other senses. But me, it's maybe been the same thing, because especially when I was younger, I really couldn't see as well. So it's maybe something I've developed without really being aware. But in hockey, we talk a lot on the ice," he concluded. "You learn to recognize the voices and to trust your teammates."