Paralyzed former Bronco aims for top level in adaptive sports
Jacob Wassermann only saw his first game of professional sledge hockey during the last Paralympics.
Now the former Humboldt Bronco wants to get on the team.
“Those guys, they shoot hard,” he said. “That’s unbelievable skill and talent for that sport.
“I was impressed right away.” Wassermann shared his experience playing adaptive sports during a panel discussion in Regina on Friday, as part of the Adapted Physical Activity Symposium.
He said sports have helped him get through the aftermath of a tragedy that took 16 lives and left him paralyzed from the waist down. He said the following months were a “really dark time” for everyone. But training and competing have always put his mind at ease.
“It helped me get out of a depression that I was battling, to get back into athletics,” he said.
“You feel like you’re in a good place, no matter what.”
Wassermann joined other panellists who have been through their own struggles, including Chris Cederstrand, a retired professional sledge hockey player who visited Wassermann at the hospital during his recovery.
Their message was clear: Adaptive athletes deserve more visibility.
Cederstrand called it “atrocious” that only one sledge hockey game is broadcast on TV in a typical year. He said other countries, including the U.S., take it far more seriously.
“That exposure level, it’s not there,” he said. “Having zero visibility in these sports, it really impacts the people that can come out and play them.”
He said he’s seen TV stations ignore a major sledge hockey game in favour of a dart tournament. That leaves most Canadians unaware just how impressive the game really is. That’s a shame, since toplevel competition is what drives some athletes to succeed.
“For some people that is the enticement to go out and play a sport: Hey, I have something to strive for and someone to compete with. When you don’t have that, you lose so many people,” said Cederstrand.
Wassermann is the kind of athlete who needs that competitive rush.
“I’m not comfortable just playing for fun,” he told the Leader-post after the panel discussion. “I have to be competitive in any sport that I do.”
His goal is to find “a new passion” and become a professional athlete at the highest level. And sledge hockey is only one candidate among many. He’s tried adaptive basketball and racing, and has been water-skiing all summer.
For Wassermann, it’s a welcome change. Hockey has always been his first love, ever since he was four years old. But now he’s seizing on the opportunity to branch out and try new things.
“I’m still experimenting, and I’m having fun doing it,” he said. “Getting to the level of hockey that I was at, you’re not allowed to do those sports anymore, because you can get hurt. Now’s my chance: I get to try everything.”
But he plans to keep pursuing sledge hockey. He even found himself in Denver last week as the special guest at a Colorado Avalanche game, along with former Broncos teammate Ryan Straschnitzki.
Wassermann said he’s had a lot of support from other adaptive athletes, like Cederstrand, and from groups that provide free equipment on loan to get him started in all his new sports. But he’s also noticed gaps in the system.
There are eight sledge hockey teams in Saskatchewan, but Wassermann says that they’re mostly “casual.” He also said there’s a need to train better coaches to teach people how to play adaptive sports.
“You need those people who know what they’re doing, and proper programs to teach coaches what to coach,” he said.
Cederstrand said funding is also an issue. The cost of adaptive equipment can be “astronomical.”
But the biggest gap is awareness. Not just of professional adaptive sports, but of the opportunities available to even the most modest athletes.
That point came up during the panel. Landon Sawden, who has cerebral palsy, said he never dreamed he’d be able to play sledge hockey until he heard from Cederstrand and Wassermann that very day.
“I thought you had to have good trunk control,” said Sawden.
Cederstrand said no. There’s higher back sleds, or even a pusher. The sport, he said, adapts to the player.
“We can get you out there,” he said.