CEDAR POINT, Ill. (AP) - When Mason Kofoid first took the ice, it wasn’t easy sledding.
The 10-year-old Cedar Point boy played his first sled hockey game last year at a crowded tournament. The unfamiliar bright lights, loud sounds and mounting pressure were too much.
“I was really nervous,” he said. “At the first game, I started to cry because I didn’t really know who everybody was. At the second game, I got a little more confident. At the third game, I was pumped.”
Now, Mason, who was born without his left femur and uses a prosthetic leg, unequivocally gushes about sled hockey.
“I love it,” he said. “I get to score goals, and I get to push people over.”
Sled hockey is conceptually similar to wheelchair basketball. Athletes with physical or mental challenges compete in a version of a sport that allows them to be mobile.
For sled hockey that means a custom-made sled and a pair of hockey sticks tipped with ice picks.
Players move around the ice using a method that looks like a hybrid of cross-country skiing and kayaking. They have to control the puck, too.
“I hit the puck in front of me to the right spot,” Mason said. “Then, I go to the spot. It’s hard to stop. I run into walls a lot.”
Mason’s parents, Matt and Rose Kofoid, said players careening around the ice are an awesome sight.
“It’s amazing,” Rose Kofoid said. “You see all of the players show up with wheelchairs, crutches or prosthetics, but when they take the ice you’d never know it.”
Born to run
Mason’s absent left femur means a lot of his young life has been spent under the knife.
Rose Kofoid said one procedure to address her son’s condition quickly turned into 16 surgeries spread out over the course of 2½ years, from ages 5 to 8.
At different times, Mason used a walker, wheelchair and crutches to get around, but now, he has a Superman-themed prosthesis made by the Mayo Clinic.
The prosthetic leg has autographs from professional athletes, including Cubs Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg and longtime Green Bay Packers kicker Mason Crosby.
“He can’t play football because of the impact,” Rose Kofoid said. “But he always said if he did play, he’d want to play kicker. Mason Crosby is his favorite player.”
Plus, he’s a big fan of the team.
Mason’s bedroom includes a lot of green and yellow dotted with Green Bay G’s - his previous leg was even Packers themed.
Since Mason is a growing boy, his prosthetic legs aren’t permanent.
In the future, he hopes to have a curved blade prosthesis designed specifically for running as made famous by Olympic sprinters.
“He wants to get a running prosthesis one day, but we’re waiting for him to grow,” Rose Kofoid said.
In the meantime, Mason hasn’t been sidelined.
In addition to sled hockey, he plays baseball, soccer and basketball, and he shoots in the Oglesby BB gun club.
“I’m all about keeping him active,” Rose Kofoid said
A ’miracle’ meeting
It was actually baseball that got Mason involved in sled hockey.
“He plays for the Miracle League baseball team in Bloomington,” Rose Kofoid said.
That’s what brought the Kofoids into contact with Central Illinois Sled Hockey Association president Tim Kirk.
His daughter also plays baseball in the league for mentally and physically challenged children as well as sled hockey.
Kirk, who also coaches the Thunder sled hockey team, invited the Kofoids to try the sport at an open house.
“I come across parents and kids that are a little reserved,” Kirk said. “But you just see them come alive and they’re having a blast. Most of them are just excited there’s a team activity they can participate in.”
Mason enjoyed himself, and the fit seemed right to his parents despite the physicality.
“I’ve never wrapped him in a bubble,” Rose Kofoid said.
How the game is played
Sleds are one of a few things that distinguish Mason’s sport from the game on skates most people know.
“Hockey is hockey,” Kirk said. “I use that sentence a lot. The flow of the game and the rules of the game. It’s just hockey.”
Even the aggression and collisions are in tact.
“They don’t drop the gloves per se, but they fly in and crash,” Rose Kofoid said.
Wheelchair-bound players lend sled hockey one of it’s other distinguishing characteristic.
“Rather than hopping the boards, because we can’t do that, we just sit on the ice,” Kirk said,
Another difference: Players on a team can span a wide swatch of ages.
Rose Kofoid said Mason is among the youngest players on the senior team, which includes nearly 60-year-old Paralympic gold medalist Jack Sanders.
Have love for hockey, will travel
Central Illinois Sled Hockey players are a far-flung bunch.
Most of the families must travel more than an hour to practice in Pekin. Recently, Mason played in Davenport, Iowa, and ice time scheduled at the Blackhawks practice facility.
“We’re truly a central Illinois team,” Kirk said. “Mason might be the farthest, but we’ve got players from Pekin, Peoria, over by Bloomington and the Champaign-Urbana area.”
Kirk, who comes from a hockey family and lives near Bloomington in Towanda, said the travelling may sound excessive, but it is standard for hockey.
“In the hockey world, that’s just the nature of the sport,” he said.
Matt and Rose Kofoid don’t begrudge the hefty travel times.
“There’s not opportunities like this around us,” Rose Kofoid said.
Plus, she said travel is the only real expense. There’s no fee to play for the Thunder and equipment is given to families.
“From a bag to those jerseys to the hoodies and the sled - they supply him with everything,” said Rose Kofoid.
Kirk said the sled hockey league, which is a non-profit organization, gets robust support from donations, grants and businesses that allow it to remain free for the physically and mentally challenged players in the league.
“All of the families of our players, none of them pay a thing to participate,” Kirk said.
Thawing out
In Mason’s second season - his first full season with the Thunder - he’s become more comfortable on the ice and with his teammates.
His coach said that’s reflected in how he plays.
“He’s really picked it up very quickly,” Kirk said. “He’s one of our better skaters. He can really get in there and get after it. He’s getting more comfortable and confident. He’s kind of starting to shine through.”
Mason has even scored his first goal in a split-squad game.
“We were going against our own team,” Mason said. “I was going against a kid named Michael. He’s really good. He’s the second best on the team.”
Teammates have noticed Mason’s tenacity, too.
Recently, a fever kept Mason out of practice, and Rose Kofoid said she received a message from the largest man on Mason’s team.
“The man is giant - he’s a beast,” Rose Kofoid said. “I got a message from him that said, ’I missed someone running into me all night.’”
She laughed.
“He just has no fear out there.”
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Source: (LaSalle) News Tribune
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Information from: News-Tribune, http://www.newstrib.com
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