Sled Hockey Helps Those Overcome Their Disabilities on the Ice

posted on Apr 12 by Nadia in the Fun, Wheelchair Sports category

To hockey players, there is nothing like the smell of the ice from a hockey rink. Mark Lalli missed that smell for five years. He was in a helicopter accident while serving and it left him with a brain injury, two collapsed lungs and multiple fractures including eight crushed vertebrae. Doctors thought he would spend the rest of his life semi-vegetative and would be lucky if he would ever be able to sit up again. Boy were they wrong!

He heard of a sled hockey team in the area that practiced on Wednesdays and Sundays after he completed his rehabilitation at the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, FL. During his first visit to the St. Pete Time Forums he found the hallway filled with people in wheelchairs. They were all a part of hockey teams created for people who cannot stand on skates. For the first time in five years he breathed in the smell of the ice and for the first time since his accident he didn’t feel handicapped.

The teams were started and funded by the Tampa Bay Lighting Foundation. The executive director of the foundation was approached by college student Travis Leigh, who has cerebral palsy,  about the sport. The foundation decided to promote it heavily by donating ice time, gear, a coach and a large portion of travel expenses. The team is now coached by Mike Celona, who previously coached two other hockey teams and played in an adult night league. Coach Celona read up on Sled Hockey and watched videos in order to prepare himself because Celona had no previous experience with the sport. From the beginning Celona decided he would make no allowances for the players’ disabilities. They would run drills, scrimmage and take the hits just like any normal hockey team.

In sled hockey, players rid on sleds made of aluminum tubing and push themselves with two shortened hockey sticks. They are allowed to shoot with both hands. They play rough and tumble hockey with checking, slamming, fighting for the puck, and crashing the boards, but under no circumstances are they allowed to T-bone one another.

Lalli still struggles with learning to play sled hockey and to some people his efforts may seem impossible. He response is, “Watch me.”