Straz on Ice: A sledge hockey lesson with Humboldt Broncos crash survivor
Gliding across the ice, my hips were beginning to throb from every fall on my side. My right foot was fast asleep and my arms were exhausted from propelling me where my legs were used to taking me.
I grew up playing hockey, but this was my first attempt at playing the sport from the seat of a sled.
“It’s different,” says Ryan Straschnitzki, my lone teammate for the Wednesday night practice at Pason Centennial Arena in Okotoks. “But it’s all part of the process.”
The 19-year-old Humboldt Broncos bus crash survivor from Airdrie is at his seventh sledge hockey lesson on this evening, being mentored by former Team Canada national player Chris Cederstrand.
Sledge hockey was one of the first things on Straschnitzki’s mind when he awoke from a seven-hour surgery on his back following the April crash. Told he was paralyzed from the chest down, Straschnitzki decided on a new goal: making the Paralympics.
“Obviously, that’s before I knew,” he says, in between horseshoe drills and laps skated down the ice, “like how much core meant to everything, and how much strength I was gonna lose and all that stuff.”
Turning in a sled is especially difficult. When I ask Straschnitzki to lead me in a drill, he laughs.
“Me showing you how to turn? I can teach the shooting one, maybe, but the turning one ...” he says, shaking his head.
One of the biggest challenges faced by those learning to play the sport is maintaining balance on the sled. Coach Cederstrand explains you always want to lean forward, maintaining your centre of mass overtop the blades beneath the sled while pulling yourself forward.
That’s made possible by hockey sticks in each hand, with metal picks attached to the butt-ends to grip the ice.
They’re like mini-sticks, I note. “Except they hurt a lot more,” Cederstrand adds.
“If you feel like you’re going to fall or slide, which will happen for sure, always try and make sure that you put your hands down and keep the sticks away,” he advises. “Like, don’t fall and bring your hands up to your stomach, because you’re going to stab yourself. That’s not fun.”
As I struggle to stay upright, Cederstrand points out that Straschnitzki faces a hurdle I don’t have to worry about. He can’t feel his positioning within his sled.
It forces him to rely entirely on the strength in his upper body that he’s built up through months of rehab.
“It’s like you’re on a rowing machine. You’re pulling through and you’re trying to engage your back as much as possible,” Cederstrand says. “When you have your core engaged that way, everything is done through your hips in a sled. Ryan’s a little bit different because he doesn’t have function of his hips right now, so he’s a lot more upperbody based.”
Saturday will mark Straschnitzki’s public sledge hockey debut, as he’s pencilled into the lineup for a charity game dubbed Cowboys ‘n Sleds. The event, which will raise funds for STARS Air Ambulance and the StrazStrong foundation, will include country music stars such as George Canyon, Paralympians, chuckwagon drivers and other special guests suiting up.
“It should be a good event. We’ll see how it goes,” Straschnitzki says during a break in practice. “That would be my first game.”
Cederstrand predicts a successful debut. “You know what? You’re going to be cruising out there compared to everyone else. Trust me.” Straschnitzki mulls it over. “Except the Olympic guys, of course,” he replies.
He says he’s looking forward to laying a bodycheck on his dad, Tom, who will also be playing.
“He’s talking a lot of smack,” says Straschnitzki.
But unlike Tom, who says physicality is what will get him through that match, the younger Straschnitzki wants to be a wellrounded sledge hockey player.
Asked what set of skills he thinks he needs to improve on most, he struggles to narrow it down.
“Everything, to be honest. I mean, it’s still pretty rusty,” Straschnitzki says. “I’m still learning how to turn just as much as you are. But I kind of use my stick to help.”
He’s better than he thinks he is, which becomes evident as he reluctantly directs me through the turn drill.
“Whichever way you’re turning, you lower that glove and kinda pick with the other one,” Straschnitzki says, using the spiked end of his outer stick to steer him. “Once you get around your turn, you start picking again.”
Cederstrand can empathize with Straschnitzki’s hesitation. The former WHL player who lost his leg in a workplace accident says transitioning to the sledge game is no easy feat.
“Coming in and you sit in a sled for the first time, it’s not like you’re going from, say, hockey to basketball,” he says. “You’re going from hockey to hockey and you think that it’s something you’re just going to hop into right away and off you go. The reality of it is ... sledge is just a whole different beast in itself, having to use your arms as both your mode of mobility and be able to stickhandle and shoot the puck and incorporate that all into one smooth motion while you’re on the ice.
“Ryan being that high-level hockey player has that drive right now and he wants to be elite. It’s one of those, ‘you’ve got to crawl before you can walk,’ and he’s wanting to go right to running.”
Straschnitzki’s straight-line speed and shot are his greatest strengths so far, according to his coach.
But even shooting has been a major adjustment. The lie of a sledge hockey blade is much lower than that of sticks used in standup hockey, forcing Straschnitzki to learn an entirely new technique.
A right-shot defenceman in standup hockey, Straschnitzki prefers to shoot with his right stick. The sledge hockey shot is a one-handed motion that relies 90 per cent on technique and just 10 per cent on strength, according to Cederstrand.
And, unlike myself, Straschnitzki has both.
“When you’re in standup hockey, you can pretty much shoot from anywhere off the blade,” notes Straschnitzki of the main difference he’s felt.
But in sledge hockey, “you want the puck at the heel of the stick, closed heel,” he says.
While his student winds up, Cederstrand quips that Straschnitzki is already putting the puck top shelf on a regular basis.
As Cederstrand zips across the ice ripping shots bar-down, he says he feels his protege is right on track to where he eventually wants to be. After all, the 38-year-old coach only took up sledge hockey six years ago.
“Get him rocking and get him onto the national team ASAP. That’s my itinerary.”
Like, don’t fall and bring your hands up to your stomach, because you’re going to stab yourself. That’s not fun.