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

Calgary Flames players.
(Image credit: Derek Leung/Getty Images)

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.

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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

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.