A youth is seated in the stands of the Tom Forsythe Memorial Arena in Burns Lake early on a Thursday evening. He is watching his younger brother’s hockey practice while keeping an eye on the clock so he can change before his own ice time. To the casual observer he is much like any other young hockey player in the region.

But 14-year old Chris Solecki is a remarkable young man. He’s garnered one of two goalie positions on the Burns Lake Minor Hockey Association’s Bantam A team only one year after surviving an attack by a grizzly bear.

The attack occurred on Sept. 12, 2005, just days after Chris played his first pre-season hockey game. Chris, then 13, was with his older brother, Matt, who was 15 at the time. The boys were out on the family farm, located on the south side of Francois Lake, when the grizzly startled them and attacked Chris. He doesn’t remember much about the incident. “Everything happened so fast,” he says.

Speculation is that the grizzly was bedded down in the area after eating grain from nearby fields and was protecting its territory. “The attack occurred in a swampy area with lots of willows as well as a few large, old spruce trees,” Cya, Chris’s mom, explains.