OKC Metro Hockey Team Hosts Game Honoring Veterans Who Served Post-9/11

The September 11 attacks prompted a generation of people to enlist in the military.

Some of those veterans came together with first responders to meet at center ice for the OKC Warriors’ annual 9/11 hockey game this past weekend.

In hockey, the momentum can shift in seconds and change the course of the game. During Sunday night's game, players said their lives changed in seconds more than 20 years ago.

"It's a lot of reminiscing especially on days like this,” OKC Warriors player Greg Liem said. “The things that happened since that day. You rose (sic) your right hand in that room when they enlist you.”

Liem, who was born and raised in New Jersey, was 19 years old on 9/11. He remembers the seconds after 8:45 a.m. eastern time.  

"I was in bio(logy) lab,” Liem said. “I remember walking back from bio lab, and one of the professors said a plane just it the twin towers.”

Liem recalled what he felt 18 minutes later.

"So I went back to my dorm room, turned on the TV just in time to see the second tower get hit with another plane,” Liem said. “[I was] kind of thinking, ‘Wow, this is my generation's Pearl Harbor. I sat there feeling angry."

Liem continued watching TV and called his loved ones as the towers collapsed.

"You just waited for your friends and family to respond back to your phone calls and see who's OK and who's not OK," Liem said. “You just realize how lucky you are, being that I knew people who didn't get those phone calls because their family was there and never to be seen again."

Within the next 24 hours, Liem made a life-changing decision.

"Walked into a recruiters office September 12th [2001]. [I'm] born and raised in New Jersey. I was joining because of 9/11.," Liem said. “I grew up watching those towers, and every single time you go into the city from New Jersey, you're greeted by the Statue of Liberty and the-then twin towers."

The Warriors come together each Sept. 11 to host a game in memoriam. At Sunday's game, they raised money via raffle and jersey auction. 

The Warriors played the Force, a team made up of police and firefighters mostly from Oklahoma City. 

Not only does the game give them a way to raise money to help veterans, it gives them a way to help themselves as they navigate civilian life.

"A lot of vets and a lot of military themselves roam this earth trying to find people exactly like them," Liem said. 

"Being out there with them is the best decision I've made besides getting married,” Warriors teammate Dakota Inman said.

Inman was in fifth grade in 2001 but said in the years after the attack he had one thought.

"I kind of realized, it sometimes can't always be somebody else,” Inman said. “Sometimes, it has to be you to step up. and do what's needed to be done. I want to be able to prevent that as much as I can from happening to anyone else."

Twenty-one years ago, life changed in a matter of seconds. For many on the team, those feelings are frozen in time.

"Remember that feeling all that time ago, that feeling of coming together as a country," Inman said.  

The Warriors lost to the Force 5-2, but the event raised $5,800.