The Rink Rejects took the ice for the first time in November, with more than 50 classmates and friends watching. For junior biomedical engineering major Jack Tim, the moment was about more than just an ice hockey game.

In 2019, Tim was in a nearly fatal ATV crash. Now he is the creator and captain of the Elizabethtown Rink Rejects, a community-based ice hockey team primarily composed of students from Elizabethtown College.

The crash happened on a back road in Tim’s hometown of Bradford, Pa. Tim was 15 at the time, and returning from a local convenience store when the snow plow on the front of his ATV caught on a dirt mound. He was thrown off of his ATV, flying 28 feet forward and 20 feet down off the road into a ravine. On the way down, he collided headfirst into a tree. For 30 minutes, Tim lay in the snow without anyone coming to his aid, with his family unaware and multiple hours away at his brother’s hockey tournament. Finally, a motorist saw him lying in the woods, and  he was then medically evacuated by a helicopter  to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, New York.

“The first 72 hours they thought I was going to die,” Tim said. “They didn’t think I would pull through because I lost so much blood and all the injuries to the brain.”

Tim broke his pelvis, skull, eight bones, lacerated his spleen, punctured a lung and suffered from the highest grade of traumatic brain injury, among other serious injuries. “His survival was first on our minds,” Tim’s father, John Tim said.

“I had to relearn how to walk, talk and eat,” Tim said.

By the beginning of April, he returned home to begin adapting to his new normal. “It’s awesome to see him succeed after his injuries,” Tim’s friend, Gavin Dach said.   “The fact that he was able to make a full recovery is nothing short of a miracle.”

Even though life returned to a form of normalcy, Tim was unable to return to the game he loved —  ice hockey. “It sucked watching my buddies get to play, and I had to watch from behind the glass,” Tim said.

Instead, he pursued his passion for ice hockey through coaching and refereeing during high school and his early college years, but he was not able to harness his full potential on the ice as a left wing. Everything changed when he transferred to Etown at the beginning of his junior year.

Tim brought his passion for ice hockey to the campus of Etown by creating the Elizabethtown Rink Rejects. “It was a very grassroots beginning,” Rink Rejects goalie Elijah Wagner said. “I was sitting in the fabrication lab when Jack asked me if I wanted to play hockey.”

Most players on the team are engineering students at Etown.

“It took me three days to get 15 boys,” Tim said, as the deadline for entry to the ice hockey league was quickly approaching. Even though the team was denied the opportunity to become an official club team at the College, the notoriety of the Rink Rejects spread quickly around campus.

“Jack is a great team leader because he is very positive…he is also good because he has experience as a coach, so he can work with players at many different skill levels and he also knows how to have fun,” Wagner said.

“To be able to pursue playing hockey again is an unbelievable experience,” Tim said. “I didn’t even think it would work out, but we have a whole team of guys and a manager.”

 After his nearly fatal and life-altering crash five years ago, Tim has the ultimate comeback. His passion for ice hockey now continues with the Rink Rejects, sharing it with his fellow teammates and the students of Etown.