Merrick Smith Eckville JrSr High School: Eckville Jr./Sr. High School student Merrick Smith stands in his school gym after returning home from the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games, where he helped Team Canada earn a bronze medal in goalball.  (Supplied)

By Vince Burke, Wolf Creek Public Schools

Merrick Smith

Eckville student with visual impairment scores bronze at 2025 Youth Parapan American Games

Dec 1, 2025 | 3:34 PM

Entering his graduation year, Merrick Smith already had reason to celebrate, but he can now add being an international bronze medalist to the list.

Seventeen-year-old Merrick, a Grade 12 student at Eckville Jr./Sr. High School (EJSHS) has recently returned from Santiago, Chile, where he represented Canada at the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games, Oct. 31 to Nov. 9. Competing in goalball, a Paralympic sport designed for athletes with visual impairments, Smith and his teammates on Team Canada captured bronze on an international stage.

Merrick was diagnosed at age nine with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition that causes the gradual loss of peripheral vision and difficulty seeing in low light.

Sports had always been part of his life, and losing the ability to play hockey was a blow. His mom, Rose Marie, quickly started looking for something that could replace what was lost.

Merrick and Rose Marie: Merrick Smith poses with his mom, Rose Marie, at the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile, where Smith represented Canada and captured a bronze medal in goalball. (Supplied)

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Through Alberta Sport and Recreation for the Blind, they found goalball, a fast and physical sport played in near silence. To even the visual impairments, all players wear blindfolds, and the heavy ball (about the size of a basketball) contains bells. The ball is thrown by hand, and never kicked, and the players use trust, instinct, feel and sound to navigate their way.

For Merrick, it quickly became a fit.

“I don’t really think it’s like any other sport,” said Merrick. “You have three people on each end, and everyone is blindfolded to level the playing field. You have to listen to where the ball is going and slide to block it.”

Once he started playing, Rose Marie, like a regular hockey mom, committed to the long drives to Edmonton and Red Deer for extended practices and provincial camps. Flash forward eight years of play, and when Team Canada selected its roster for the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games, Merrick was one of six chosen.

“The nerves don’t really hit you until you’re on the court,” Merrick said. “That first game, you really feel it.”

Canada’s bronze medal match against Mexico turned into a grinder. Early in the game, Smith took a bouncing shot to the face, leaving him shaken and with a badly bloody nose.

“It was a bounce shot, and I was just too slow to react,” Merrick said. “I didn’t get my hands in front of my face, and I got hit.”

Medics worked fast, and he returned to the game.

With under a minute remaining, Canada trailed. Two late goals sealed a 10–9 Canadian victory.

GoalBall Team Canada: Members of Canada’s goalball team celebrate their bronze-medal finish at the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile. Eckville student Merrick Smith is pictured among his teammates following the medal ceremony. (Supplied)

Back in Eckville, students were watching.

With the time change, some matches streamed live during the school’s lunch hour, filling the common room.

“We were cheering every goal,” said EJSHS Principal Dean Pilipchuk. “We lived every swing of that game.”

When he returned home, the school celebrated Merrick’s bronze medal win with its regular assembly, with an immediate ovation from the student body and staff.

For Pilipchuk, the moment felt important, not because Merrick is seen as different at school, but because he isn’t.

“If you walked into our building and didn’t know him,” he said, “I don’t think you’d be able to pick Merrick out from anyone else.”

That didn’t happen by accident. Over time, the school quietly adapted: backpacks were kept out of aisles, clear hallways, and Braille was put on doors. This happened not through rules or reminders, but through habit.

“It’s not about ‘looking after’ someone,” Pilipchuk said. “It’s about respect.”

Rose Marie said Eckville Jr./Sr. High School and Wolf Creek Public Schools have been very supportive since the first day of Merrick’s diagnosis.

“Wolf Creek has been an amazing resource for us. I hear stories of other school divisions, and we have been super, super, super fortunate, and I say that loudly,” she said. “Lots of school divisions aren’t as accommodating. They’re not able to give as many resources.”

She added that Merrick has also been fortunate with the transliterator that he has.

She’s been amazing,” said Rose Marie. “The school has always been very supportive of him and accommodating.”

Along with Merrick, Team Canada consisted of Caden Johnson of Red Deer, a longtime goalball teammate whom Merrick has played alongside before. The roster also included Will Campbell of Calgary, Hayden Den Ouden of Barrie, Ontario, Samuel Devries of Gatineau, Quebec, and Harry Nickerson of Halifax, Nova Scotia, bringing together athletes from across the country for Canada’s bronze-medal run in Chile.