Participating as a team player

Lecture given at the International Meeting in Pediatric Neuromuscular Rehabilitation. Vingstedcentret, Denmark, May 18-20, 2006

By Kristian Jensen, director, Danish Disability Sport Information Centre

(1st slide)

I will talk about the

* Development of electric wheelchair hockey in Denmark during the last 15 years, and

* some of the effects for children and youngsters with neuromuscular disorders, who are now able to participate in team sports.

Later this afternoon, there will be a practical demonstration of wheelchair hockey in the sport hall.

Physical activities and games play a big role in childrens’ communities, and a child with physical limitations is at risk of being left behind when his friends go out to play football or rollerskate.

Adapted sport and physical activity can help or compensate to some degree.

However, 20 years ago there were hardly any adapted sport for persons using electric wheelchair. And in particular: There were no team sports. Electric wheelchair hockey changed that.

(2nd slide)
It was a new possibility for children and youngsters with different kinds of disabilities, but first of all for those with neuromuscular disorders. A possibility to participate in a team sports with speed.

Electric wheelchair hockey was played in other countries long before it was introduced in Denmark - I encountered the game for the first time in the Netherlands in 1986.

It was at a Rehabilitation school in Arnhem, where the schoolmaster and his staff organized training and competition in electric wheelchair hockey, and had designed this fine hockey paddle, to be attached to the footrest of a wheelchair. You can catch the ball with the paddle and drive it forward or pull it backward or pass it with a turn of your chair.

The Danish Sports Organization for Disabled, where I was working at the time, invited the schoolmaster and his hockey team from Arnhem to come here to Vingstedcentret in the summer of 1988 to help us get started.

However, we found that there were some problems with the game:

Players would use their normal chairs, which were heavy and slow, and not sporty at all.

Consequently, the game was slow and not terribly exciting to watch.
When heavy chairs collide, things will sometimes break, and a player could have problems getting on with his ordinary life for days or even weeks, because he had to wait for the wheelchair to be fixed.

(3rd slide)

Moreover, players were not playing on equal terms. Some players would hold the hockey stick in their hand (the player to the left), while others did not have the strength to do so, and therefore had the stick attached to the wheelchair (player to the right). This gave the player with the hand-held stick an advantage.

In fact, teams were dependant on players with hand-held sticks as playmakers and to score the goals. Those with stick attached to the chair would often be confined to the role of goalkeepers.

For those reasons, the Danish Sports Organization for the Disabled decided to develop an electric sports wheelchair, that would enable players with minimum muscle strength in arms and hands to participate in wheelchair hockey on equal terms. We wanted the wheelchair to be so powerful and manoeuverable that it would be an advantage for ALL players to have the hockey stick attached to the chair, rather that hold it in their hand.

The chair must move so quickly that you can deliver the ball with speed and accuracy, just by hitting it with a paddle attached to the chair.

Inventing a new electric wheelchair was expensive, and the sports movement for disabled was poor.
(4th slide)

Help came in the shape of a silver coin. A special 10 crown coin had been issued by the Royal Mint to celebrate Crownprince Frederik’s 18 years birthday, and the sale created a surplus.

(5th slide)

Part of the surplus was earmarked to the development of sports equipment for disability sport, and made available to the Danish Sports Organization for Disabled. A design competition was organized and produced this new electric sports wheelchair. Here presented by the designer, Mogens Holm Rasmussen, who won the design competition.

Now, 15 years later, this chair is used for wheelchair hockey all over Denmark.

(6th slide)

The chair has a wooden frame, it is strong and very light - you can pick it up and put it in the trunck of a car. The chair has a low centre of gravity, a maximum speed of 14 km per hour, 3 wheels, with the steering wheel situated in the back, and a battery that can be replaced in a few seconds, for example during timeout or half time.

It is a true piece of sports equipment, and it enables the athlete to reach a high level of performance, and participate in a team sport with speed, drama and excitement, as I’m sure you can see on the

Short promotional video that I will now show.
It lasts 2 minutes, and I will keep my mouth shut while you watch.

(Video: Hockey Sport)

Since we started, the technique has developed immensely. At first, some of the players would complain that they were not able to drive straight, the chair would keep turning, sometimes spinning, they could not control it, and they thought something was wrong with the chair.

Eventually they learned that it’s not the chair, it’s the player that needs more practise! It’s like driving a Formula 1 race car: You need more than just a driver’s license. You must practise, again and again, before you can master it.

Today, there are between 150 and 200 hockey players in Denmark who play in this kind of chair, plus a handful in Sweden and Norway. 25 teams from 13 different clubs participate in our regional and national tournament, in 3 divisions.

They are having fun! And they are learning, at the same time.

As all other participants in a team sport, they will eventually try and train many of the different roles one can have as member of a dynamic group.

Sometimes you are must take the initiative, and sometimes you must make way for a fellow player, or act as assistant or backup. You learn to position yourself, to be as available and useful for your team as possible.
Your team will have a strategy and a style of it’s own. But every situation is new - and every moment, the player will have to choose between a number of options: To stick to his course or turn, move forward or fall back, block, dribble, pass, shoot. Decisions made in a split second. Noone else can decide for him: Not his coach, not his mother, or his fans. Each player has to choose for himself.

And he will see the result immediately.

Electric wheelchair hockey is now the biggest wheelchair sport in Denmark, outnumbering other popular sports like wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby.

A large share of the hockey players are children and youngsters with neuromuscular disorders, but people with other disabilities play as well. All you need is good motor control in the tip of a finger – and training, training, training. It’s not the disability that counts – its the ability.

(7th slide)

Before coming here, I visited a young man, who works at the University of Information Technology in Copenhagen. Per Rasmussen is 25 years old, works with advanced computer technology, and belongs to the first group of young people with neuromuscular disorders who grew up as wheelchair hockey players.

(8th slide)

Per started playing hockey at the age of 11 or 12, and played for about 5 years. The small photo shows him on the top of his career, where he reached the position as best player in the national tournament.

Per said to me: (quote)

“I started playing in a club where the coaches really knew how to make everybody take things serious and have fun at the same time.

I was small and skinny, and had practically no muscle power. I had trouble eating and breathing. But my control of the joystick was excellent, and as I weighed only 14 or 15 kilos, my chair drove faster than then others.

Electric wheelchair hockey took up a lot of my time. I really looked forward to matches and training. To be the best at something – not just AMONG the best but THE best – was a brand new thing for me.

As a kid I rarely mingled with other kids with disabilities. That didn’t mean anything to me. Electric wheelchair hockey is the only place I’ve spent time with fellow disabled people without focusing on being disabled!” (unquote)

(9th slide)

21 year old Nicklas Charlton has been playing electric wheelchair hockey for 15 years – since he was 6. He says: (quote)

“Electric wheelchair hockey has speed, action and team spirit. It challenges your strength. It provides a social network and lots of different experiences – and then there is the whole element of competition.

Today the game has developed tactically into more controlled matches. All the teams know each other very well. That’s why I wish for more clubs abroad in order to play other opponents and achieve harder competition.

Electric wheelchair hockey gives you a positive identity, and after many years in the sport I almost get treated like a star when visiting other clubs.”

(10th slide)

In the sport hall later this afternoon you will have the opportunity to meet players, coaches, and parents. You will see the game demonstrated in practise, and you may have a chance to try the hockey wheelchair yourself, if you like.

We would really like to see the game spread to other countries.