Toronto Maple Leafs: Blind senior sees team play

This is a wish that has been fulfilled for more than 50 years.

A 78-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs fan from Nova Scotia will be able to watch his favorite team play tonight thanks to a charity that grants unfulfilled wishes to seniors.

Meanwhile, when Eric MacDonald sits down to watch the Boston Bruins take on the Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Friday night, he'll be wearing a device that allows him to clearly see the players.

MacDonald is visually impaired. He has not seen his grandchildren for more than 10 years.

“I'll probably feel lucky when I get there,” he told CTV News Your Morning before the game. “When I went in there and saw the size and the number of people.”

“I want to see Auston Matthews score some goals.”

Kathy Mahoney, founder of the charity We Are Young, said Eric is one of 20 to 30 seniors whose wishes will come true this year. His love for his family and his struggle with his own vision set him apart from other candidates.

“He's a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs and even though he couldn't see, he wanted to go to the game to hear it and be in the crowd. It just spoke to us,” he told CTV News Toronto.

Mahoney said MacDonald last saw a Leafs game when he was 18 at a corporate event, but he was in the nosebleed department.

“He joked that he never got to see the game,” he told CTV News Toronto.

We Are Young partnered with eSight to give McDonald special glasses to use on the night. Glasses provide 20/20 vision to the visually impaired and legally blind.

Eric MacDonald demonstrates eSight glasses on CTV News Your Morning.

MacDonald visited Toronto with her grandchildren, and while trying on the glasses, her grandson saw his face for the first time since he was nine years old.

He said that his grandson would not have known it was him if he hadn't talked to him.

“One of my youngest (grandchildren), he just turned 11,” MacDonald said. “I never saw him before the glasses.”

After meeting MacDonald, representatives from E-Sight decided to donate the glasses to him because they know how difficult it can be to give sight and then take it away.

“I don't know what to say,” she said on “The Morning,” adding that she can't wait to get out and see the people she's waving to.

Mahoney said We Are Young is sorting through a backlog of applications due to the pandemic. In the past few years, they've been unable to grant some big wishes, instead focusing on sending about 4,000 care packages to isolated and lonely seniors, granting what Mohoney calls “small wishes.”

The charity operates mainly through donations and has recently launched a new program called 'Monthly Wish Champion' to help fund a month's wish.