HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — A young hockey player from Holland is now equipped to hit the ice and hear the action around him after the Grand Rapids Griffins stepped up to help. 

When 9-year-old Toby Pickart hits the ice, the common sounds of skates scraping along the ice, the connection of the stick to the puck and the cheers from fans don’t sound the same for him.

Toby was born with no outer ear or ear canal and wears cochlear baha implants. He had to take them off while playing because of his helmet, which caused problems for him on the ice.

“(It’s) a little bit frustrated. And also I couldn’t hear the coaches, so I had no idea what to do,” Toby said.

He told his dad about it, who picked up his phone to try and find a solution.

“It took about two months of just randomly calling people and trying to open up doors. I found out a lot that I didn’t know existed,” Mark Pickart, Toby’s dad, said.

That’s when he was told to reach out to the Griffins, who got right to work to find a solution.

“There is no way that I’m letting that poor kid not enjoy hockey just for the simple fact that he has a disability,” Brad Thompson, head equipment manager for the Grand Rapids Griffins, said.

The team gifted Toby with a custom-fit helmet that has room for his implant.

“We figured out how to keep his implants from touching so they don’t beep. So we just modified the helmet around his ears to make sure that he was OK, that he could play,” Thompson said.

The helmet is adjustable so that as he grows, so will the helmet. Toby and his dad were able to go to the arena, meet players and customize his new helmet.

“They made him feel like he was 10-foot tall and bulletproof. Like, to me, that was incredibly important,” Mark Pickart said.

Now Toby is hitting the ice with his brand-new helmet and confidence, and he doesn’t plan on slowing down.

“I feel determined, determined to win,” Toby said.