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ST. CLOUD — For the past six years, Jeremy Christie and his daughter, Lauren, had been members of the Twin Cities Wild sled hockey team based out of Coon Rapids. Jeremy was a partner coach and Lauren, who is now 16, was a player.
On Sundays, they would drive from their home in Sauk Rapids for practice.
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“There’s not a lot of sports for disabled athletes,” said Jeremy, a teacher at Sauk Rapids-Rice Middle School. “So I thought we’d start a team in the St. Cloud area.
“The last couple years, I was talking to Sara Kitzmann, whose daughter also plays here. We just said, ‘Let’s try putting together a team.’ We had registration in September. We had our first practice in mid November.”
That’s how the St. Cloud Blizzard sled hockey team, a team for players with disabilities, was born. The Blizzard ice a 10-player youth team (ages 7-18) and a seven-player adult team. Both practice together for 1-1/2 hours on Sunday nights at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
With the help of the Skate It Forward program, a philanthropic initiative of the Minnesota Wild Foundation dedicated to preserving, strengthening, and celebrating community hockey in Minnesota, it’s affordable.
“They want the first year to be free,” Jeremy Christie said of the Wild. “Most of these players, this is their first year of hockey. Their USA Hockey and registration fee are free. Skate it Forward program will donate $250 per player to pay for their fees. Once they’ve played for us, there’s standard fees for players.
“Hendrickson Foundation has been a great sponsor for us. Sauk Rapids and St. Cloud youth hockey both gave us start-up money and ice time, which is awesome. Minnesota Sled Hockey Association helped us purchase our first set of sleds. Those aren’t cheap.”
A sled and sticks total about $1,000, he said.
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Lauren Christie said her father has put a lot of work into the team.
“He has gotten all this, scheduled all the ice time and all the everything,” she said. “I’m very thankful for that.”
Jason Neal of St. Cloud has three boys playing on the team. Malachi, 22, plays on the adult team. Emmanuel, 18, and Takoda, 9, are on the youth team.
“Jeremy has been amazing with helping us make connections,” Neal said. “He’s so helpful. He also has a child with different needs, so he’s not just a coach who understands hockey. It’s a dad who understands what we’re going through. He just makes the connection really well.”
Malachi Neal, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), had no plans of playing sled hockey. But after he saw Emmanuel (cerebral palsy) and Takoda (gastroparesis) play in a tournament, he changed his mind.
“I went to a tournament for my little brothers and they had done practice for a couple weeks before I knew anything about it,” he said. “I said, ‘Why not? I’ll try it out.’ One of our family friends lent me his entire hockey gear, so I didn’t have to buy anything. Everything fit me perfectly and it’s in great condition.
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“We rented the sleds and the sticks and got everything else we needed. I’d been on a sled before. I was on a school trip or something a long time ago. It was fun.”
While his brothers are on the youth team, he gets to practice with them.
“It’s fun,” Malachi said. “I get to spend time with my little brothers, mess around a little bit with them at practice. We don’t play any games together … (but) it gets everyone together on a Sunday. It’s a lot of fun. It gets everybody active. I’m glad that I get to get out and do stuff.”
He’s still trying to master the art of skating with the sled, though.
“The moving forward is very, very easy,” Malachi said. “It’s super intuitive. The turning and keeping your momentum with the turns is where it gets difficult. The way you get your sled set up and how wide your skates are can change that. I haven’t really messed with the skates yet.
“I definitely want to shorten them because I feel like I can’t turn with anybody else. When I look at the bottom of (other players’) sleds, their skates are maybe an inch apart. Mine are very wide. I’m going to try that to see what kind of a difference it makes. To turn, you’ve got to get on the edge of one of the skates and swing your body around to get momentum I have a really hard time doing that with how wide my skates are. I almost tip over to turn. There’s a lot of movement with your arms. It’s a lot of work, but I enjoy it.”
The difference between practices and the games, though, is noticeable.
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“I’m able to keep up with everyone in practice,” Malachi said. “When I get in the games, I’m not nearly experienced enough to play with everyone … I’ve played other adaptive sports and I understand where I should be positioning myself and where the puck is going to go. But getting there and being able to do what I want to do with the puck is the thing I have to work on, for sure. I feel like if I improve on those skills, I’m going to have a ton of fun in the games.”
He also likes the social aspect of the team.
“It gets me out of the house, which is something that doesn’t happen super often because I don’t have a (driver’s) license,” Malachi said. “In Minnesota, especially this time of year, it’s super cold out. Walking everywhere isn’t really a thing. It gets me out of the house and gets me exercising. I get to make new friends and learn new skills.”
Organizing a team is one thing. Finding opponents to play is another. Minnesota has four sled hockey teams. Besides the teams in Coon Rapids and St. Cloud, there are others in Moorhead and Rochester.
“The Wild had a tournament in November that we went to in Elk River,” Jeremy Christie said. “December (we play) in LaCrosse. Brookings (South Dakota) in February. Moorhead has one in March. The biggest sled hockey event is the Hendrickson Festival in Blaine the last weekend in May. We will go to Madison. The Siouxland team is in the Brookings/Iowa/South Dakota area. The next closest team is in Minot, North Dakota.”
The games are similar to regular hockey with five players and one goalie per team, faceoffs and penalties. Because the players are in sleds, though, when they are not playing, they are lined up by the boards near the bench.
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“The goalie is in the sled in that big net, so if you can lift the puck, it’s a big advantage,” Jeremy Christie said. “When you’re on the bench, they’re by the boards. The puck comes, they just tap it out and play keeps going. The sled has two blades you skate on. The sticks have one side that you shoot with and one side is picks to help you skate.”
Players tried out for the team in October at the Municipal Athletic Complex. Emmanuel Neal, who has cerebral palsy, has to have an able-bodied pusher to participate.
“Emmanuel loves it and he just wants to be involved and loves the camaraderie,” Jason Neal said. “We didn’t know Takoda was going to do it, but then, why not? He loves sports.
“Then the season started and they went to a tournament and Malachi came with and Malachi said, ‘I should do this, too.’ Now we have three involved. Malachi struggles to get out … He struggles getting out of the house and socially. We saw an opportunity to get Malachi involved.”
Lauren Christie, who has spina bifida, said that she has gotten to meet a lot of new people with the Blizzard.
“It’s a nice way to be with friends,” she said. “I’ve made a lot … we started with only a couple people. It’s growing a lot and people are enjoying it and it’s fun to get together.”
She has noticed improvement since the beginning of the season.
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“Some of the kids when they first tried it out, they could barely stay up,” she said. “Now they hardly get knocked down. There’s a lot of adaptive things. My dad just finished one (sled) up and got a higher back for one. We also have a player who is a double amputee and they have to put things on to protect all that.
“It’s really nice to have all these adaptations things to be able to do what we want to do. Even if it’s not like everyone else.”
She also has gotten a chance to play against her old teammates from the Twin Cities team.
“The first tournament we had was against the Twin Cities team and it was so fun to get out there and play against my old teammates,” Lauren said. “At the end, we were bumping into each other and seeing each other again and seeing the coaches.”
The hope, of course, is that the Blizzard are able to find more players.
“My biggest concern with starting a team was that we weren’t going to have enough players,” Jeremy Christie said. “We had some sponsors step up and we have 17 players in our first year. I was worried that we would have to fill our youth team to go to events.
“To have 10 youth and have our own team and to have 17 people out there for practice in our first year is pretty amazing. Hopefully, we can continue to grow. I’m sure there’s more people that would be great additions in the St. Cloud area.”
Sponsors of the team include:
MN Sled Hockey Association
St. Cloud Youth Hockey
Sauk Rapids Youth Hockey
Hendrickson Foundation
Dentistry For Children
RD Machine
RTL Construction
Citizen Bank & Trust Co.
St. Cloud Warriors Hockey Team
St. Cloud Lions
For information on the St. Cloud Blizzard, email Jeremy Christie at stcloudsledhockeypresident@gmail.com or visit https://www.stcloudareasledhockey.com/ .
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