Northeast Passage Levels the Playing Field for Disabled Athletes
When Taylor Chace was 16, he suffered a spinal cord injury while playing hockey. "Everyone thought that would be the end of competitive hockey for him," says Tom Carr, assistant director and director of athletics for competitive sports at Northeast Passage.
Chace's sister, who was a student at the University of New Hampshire, told him about Northeast Passage , an organization affiliated with the university that offers competitive and recreational sporting teams and events for people with disabilities. One of those sports is sled hockey, where the athletes are in a semi-seated position on a "sled," and power themselves by using two small sticks with picks on the bottom; the sticks are used for propulsion, passing, and shooting. Raise money for this nonprofit and other nonprofits.
Once he healed from his acute injuries, Chace started going to watch the sled hockey practice sessions -- and a year and a half later, he tried sled hockey for the first time. "Let me tell you, I still remember that day because he wasn't very good, but you could just tell that it was something he wanted to do," says Carr. "He obviously knew the game already."
Just two years after his injury, Chace joined the national team and played in the Paralympics in Torino in 2006. "He actually scored a game-winning goal in the Bronze Medal game for the US," recalls Carr.
Besides sled hockey, Northeast Passage offers water skiing, golf, tennis, cycling, hiking, kayaking, soccer, rugby and other sports. Each sports accommodates athletes with various disabilities. For example, power soccer is played using power wheelchairs, and in hand cycling, athletes cycle using their hands instead of their feet.
Northeast Passage was founded by Jill Gravink, a therapeutic recreation specialist, in 1990. Therapeutic recreation is an allied health profession, similar to occupational therapy or physical therapy, that uses sports and games tools to help people in clinical settings.
After going through rehabilitation in Gravink's workplace, "People were coming back and saying, 'I felt like I got dropped off a cliff and someone was asking me to fly,'" Gravink says. "Northeast Passage started to pick people up at that point and provide a community and culture where disability is a part of their life and not the defining factor in their life." In its first year, Northeast Passage served 27 people, was all-volunteer, and had a budget of $2,000. "From then it just got busier and busier and there were more and more things to do, so I got a federal grant with the help of a professor here at the University of New Hampshire," Gravink adds. "It was like watering a plant. It really took off from that point."
In 2008, Northeast Passage served over 900 people, mostly in New Hampshire, southern Maine, and northeastern Massachusetts; there are nine paid staff members in addition to volunteers. The organization's competitive teams have had a lot of success; for example, the Northeast Passage Wildcats are two-time national sled hockey champions. The athletes Northeast Passage serves are a broad group; in sled hockey, "We have everyone from people with spinal cord injuries, amputees, people with birth defects, people with cerebral palsy or spina bifida," says Carr.
Northeast Passage does more than offer these people new communities and athletic outlets. Gravink remembers one man who had a spinal cord injury who became involved in scuba diving, kayaking, and skiing through Northeast passage. When Gravink asked him what the experience has been like for him, he replied that while he enjoyed the sports, the most important thing Northeast Passage has done for him is get him back in the conversation with his athletic friends. He said, "I'd stopped going out like on Friday night with my group of friends because all of my stories were five years old. They'd be talking about what they did last weekend, and I'd be talking about what I did five years ago. But when I started doing sports again, I was able to add to their conversation."
"I think that's something that people don't think about -- the role that recreation plays in your life," says Gravink. "It's stress management. It's your social network. It's how you stay in shape. It's family bonding. If you take that away from someone, you take away far more than just that activity. You take away all of the things that you gain from that activity."
For Gravink, Carr, and the Northeast passage athletes, it's not about disabilities. "We try very hard to create an environment where disabilities is a non-issue and we're here around the sport," says Gravink. "We made the accommodations for disability, so we've leveled the playing field -- and now it's about the sport."
By Linda Formichelli
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