Sports Bring the Challenge, Duo Meet it Head On

Nina Nissly has taken the challenged out of physically challenged.

Born with cerebral palsy, the junior is in her fifth year of sled hockey.

“I was affected more early on, but as time goes by and medical stuff is updated, now, in my daily life, it’s not much of a challenge,” Nissly said.

Sunday, Nissly helped the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association (GLASA) Falcons sled hockey stars dominate a team of hockey team members, student leaders and teachers, 5-1, at the Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse.

Swimming Creates Confidence

Nissly, 17, also plays basketball – her GLASA hoops coach Tom Daily recruited her to hockey – and swims the 100-yard freestyle, usually on relay squads, for the LFHS girls’ junior varsity swim team.

“I really believe that’s where everyone, in general, should start. I swim a lot,” said Nissly, who lives in .

Nissly stick-handled the puck from her defensive blue line during Sunday’s game nearly the length of the ice, scoring with a loft shot just over the laid-out goalie’s head.

Her hockey counterpart, Ana Kohout, 13, was flying alongside, ready for a rebound.

A seventh-grader at , Kohout swims and plays basketball with GLASA, and learned about sled hockey through her classmate Lisa Davis’ mom, Julie Davis, a Deerfield Falcons hockey coach who started the program.

Born with spina bifida, Kohout is affected from the knee down, and uses crutches or a wheelchair for longer distances. The 13-year-old hasn’t let it stop her and she does everything her friends do, and then some.

“GLASA has been really amazing about that,” said Kohout. “I never would have done all the sports I do without them. I do even more than I would have if I didn’t have my disability. With swimming, I’ve just always liked the water, but with GLASA I’ve gotten really more involved.”

Learning the Game

Kohout’s been playing hockey for two years, and said the biggest challenge was just learning the ins and outs of the game.

“The rest, I just kind of figured out and my teammates helped me with tips. It’s pretty easy,” she said.

Sled hockey targets physically challenged athletes – amputees, nervous system-affected and even visually impaired. The Lake Forest College players were all able-bodied but played, too, on the inches-off-the-ground sleds which look like low-to-the-ground racing wheelchairs on a rear twin-blade. Athletes propel by pushing off the ice with the handle ends of their two, very cut-down-shaft, regular hockey sticks.

The team practices for two hours every Sunday at in Lake Bluff. “We usually scrimmage at the end and that’s probably what gets me the most tired,” said Kohout.

Nissly, who also plays on the U.S. women’s national sled hockey team, said, “when I go into hockey practice or a game, I expect out of myself to perform well as an athlete and to have fun. Now if I score or have an assist, or have an awesome hit, that’s the bonus. I go to have fun and play the game out of the love for hockey.”

Hockey Just One of GLASA Offerings

She attends LFHS with just the occasional leg brace, but no other visible reference to her disability, or her sled hockey mastery, and saw some of her classmates volunteering at Sunday’s game. “It was kind of cool.”

“I can’t really run around a tennis court, but, the way I view sports, is that if there’s a challenge, I want to play, and if some sport is a challenge for me, I somehow adapt it so that I can play,” Nissly said.

GLASA, based at the in Lake Forest, offers 32 different sports and recreational programs and attracts participants from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, according to executive director and founder, Cindy Housner. GLASA has been aligned with Lake Forest College for several years and when Falcons coach Davis learned of GLASA’s new sled hockey program, she connected it with Tony Fritz, who coached the college’s men’s hockey team for many years and thought it would be a great fit.

“Coach Fritz is wonderful. He’s brought some assistant coaches, and Julie has done a tremendous amount of work to grow the sled hockey program,” added Housner.

The Falcons’ next game is Saturday against the Wisconsin Warriors in Madison, Wis.