Special glasses let legally blind hockey fan watch a game up close

(Image credit: Derek Leung/Getty Images)

last updated 13 March 2017

For the first time, hockey fan Olivia Lettich, 11, was able to see in person the colors of the Calgary Flames jerseys, the blocks, and the players smashing into the boards.

Lettich is legally blind, and has 20/400 vision. She watches Flames games on television, but often needs people to describe to her what is happening. When she was four months old, Lettich was diagnosed with a rare pediatric cancer, and she had to undergo nine rounds of chemotherapy, 50 radiation treatments, and surgery to remove her right eye. Now in remission, Lettich sometimes wears special eSight glasses, made for the blind. Using high-definition camera technology, the glasses improve vision in her left eye to 20/40.

Last week, eSight surprised Lettich with tickets to a game between the Flames and the New York Islanders. Lettich was able to watch the Flames warm up, meet a few players, and make a lot of memories. "It was all so amazing," she told The Washington Post.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.