As Marc-Andre Emond holds his father's hand, the small gesture has great significance.
"I've started to move my upper body, but not my legs," said the 15-year-old boy. "That's going to take time."
The result of a push from behind into the boards during a hockey game two weeks ago, Emond cracked two vertebrae at the base of his neck, leaving him initially paralyzed. Doctors used bone from his left hip to replace his vertebrae, but they say it's too soon to know if he'll ever walk again.
The boy's coach, Jason Dorrington, saw him crash into the boards.
"He's not the kind of guy to stay down when he gets hit, so as soon as he wasn't getting up, I thought something was wrong," said Dorrington.
Marc-Andre's mother blames the incident on violence in hockey.
"Hitting from behind should be banned, or at least punished severely," said Nancy Emond.
Hockey Quebec says it's premature to review the rules, but Dorrington thinks it's past due.
"They get two games - a slap on wrist. It's nothing. They move on. They're going to play in two weeks. It's nothing. It needs to get more severe for them so they stop and realize they're not going to be playing for a while," he said.
The plea comes on the heels of a ruling in Quebec court Monday of an 18-year-old former hockey player who will serve no jail time or probation and won't pay a fine after he was convicted of assault with a weapon in a general brawl last year.
While Marc-Andre doesn't blame the other player for his injury, he hopes Hockey Quebec will review the rules.
"I don't want what happened to me to happen to another player," he said.
