For Grade 10 student Wyatt Jones, hockey has always been the No. 1 priority. That is until he started losing his sight.

At just 15 years old, Jones — a teenager as active as they come — thought he was going in for a routine eye exam. Sure, his vision had started to worsen, but with friends from school and sports starting to get glasses, he was sure he'd fit right in with a sleek new pair of spectacles.

"It was nothing like that — at all," Jones told Game On. "So, I go in and they end up telling me that I have a degenerative eye disease. They go on to tell me I have keratoconus, or a thinning of the cornea. So, instead of my eye being the normal circular shape, it is slowly coning. And with that, my vision as it progresses is getting worse and worse."

A Hockey Player's Worst Fear

As a centreman on the RINK Winnipeg's U17 Prep squad, seeing the puck is certainly of utmost importance. Surely, the recommended procedure would help Jones with his day-to-day living and active lifestyle, wouldn't it?

Unfortunately not. The operation was mainly aesthetic — a process of resurfacing Jones' eyes to bring them back to normal shape and prevent further damage and sight loss. It didn't, however, return his already foggy vision to a clearer standpoint.

"The procedure I got was called cornea crosslinking," he said. "It was mainly to reshape my eye and have it so my vision wouldn't get worse. Two weeks later and my vision still isn't great; it's basically the same from before, because it really wasn't really supposed to help my vision much at all."

"The best way to describe it is seeing little halos all over the place," Jones added. "It's the lights, they're just bouncing off of the ice and it's very bright. It's hard to imagine, but it almost looks like three or four inches of fog on the ice. Just think how deep that is, it is almost a little bit foggy but combined with reflective lights."

Right in the Middle of the Season

Considering the deterioration of his eye shape and worsening of his vision, the Jones family opted to go ahead with the operation, and did so in early-November — right in the middle of the hockey season.

"No, the timing wasn't great and I ended up missing six games," the Headingley product said. "An eye injury is one of the scariest things, and I had never really experienced anything like that before. The first couple days were pretty tough. It was really painful, itchy and blurry. I got it done on a Thursday, so missed that weekend, and then missed the next weekend's games. But then the blurriness following the surgery kind of went away. It's still there but just not as prominent as before. But I knew it was never supposed to make my vision 20/20. We just didn't want it to get any worse. They said later in life I can probably get LASIK surgery, but that's further down the road."

As it turned out, the surgery was not covered by health insurance, leaving the Joneses with a hefty bill. But as he says, it was his parents that helped him through the setback.

"The procedure was done here in downtown Winnipeg, so we didn't have to go anywhere far or anything," he shared. "But it definitely took a little while to get in and stuff a little bit, and then it wasn't covered by insurance, which didn't help either. But my parents took care of that and they really helped me here. They were a great help and guided me through the whole thing."

Adapting on the Ice

Jones' recovery involved the application of a copious amount of daily eye drops, while also making some changes to his on-ice attire.

"I'm still dealing with it on the ice a bit," he said. "It's been a little bit tough and I actually had to switch to a fishbowl as well which is a little bit different. It's been tough, but I just have to adapt a little bit. They said maybe in the next three to four months I could possibly get glasses, and then in the next six months I'll be able to get contacts. So, I'll try to do that after the hockey season. It's tough, but it's good that I got it done."

A Teammate and Coach Who Care

Suiting up as a first-year player on the U17 Prep team, Jones does have some familiarity with a few of his teammates and his coach, Ian Duvall, who made the jump from the RINK's U15 program last season.

"Jonesy is a real team guy and he's just a great kid," Coach Duvall said. "He enjoys coming to the rink every day, and I'm just fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach him the last two seasons and get to know him. So, for me to hear that news about what he has been going through this season, I was pretty taken aback by it. I care about him and his health is my No. 1 priority. So, as a coach, that was tough to hear. But honestly, if you saw him this season, you wouldn't even have known that he was going through it. He's been so positive and handled it immensely well. I couldn't be more proud of him for battling through it."

Eyes on the Future

Jones — whose father Doug is originally from Ohio — is a dual citizen and aims to pursue an unconventional development route following his time at the RINK. Having gone undrafted through his year of WHL eligibility, he has attended a number of United States Hockey League camps and has the hope of heading south with further aspirations of a university scholarship.

"Wherever he ends up, I know he'll do great," Duvall said. "In terms of his development and moving forward and progressing in his career, I can definitely see him playing Junior hockey somewhere. That's obviously up to him, whether it's an opportunity in the Western League, or if he wants to take the College route. I know he's been down to a few USHL camps and that is exciting for him, but I could surely see him going either way. I'm just glad I got the chance to help him out on his developmental path and get to know the kind of guy he is."