Teen makes National Sled Hockey team BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer WOODBRIDGE - Nineteen-year-old Nick Teodoro traveled to Colorado Springs last week to hang out with the Adult National Sled Hockey team, hoping to make the team. On July 8, it happened. "I didn't expect it; it's quite surreal," said Teodoro with a smile. "This is my second year trying out for the team, and this year they decided to move me up. I just thought I would hang out with them, but it just made it that much better when I found out I made the team. It was great." The U.S. Sled Hockey Association selected 17 players, but two players will be cut by the time of the main tournament in March 2008, which will be held in Boston. Tournaments are played all over the United States as well as in Germany and Japan. Teodoro, who was born with spina bifida and is confined to a wheelchair, said his coaches, who include Kevin Fee and John Eberhardt of the Woodbridge teams and Al Grow in South Mountain, have been pushing and encouraging him to try out for the Adult National team. "Tryouts [which occur every year] involve a lot of skating, scrimmaging, practice one-on-one, and drills," said Teodoro, who had been selected for the Junior National team. "Pretty much it's how you fare in a game scenario." Eberhardt said Teodoro is definitely an impact player for the Woodbridge teams and an inspiration to the kids. "When Nick joined us, we went from a dormant team to a winning team," he said. "The kids definitely have a different outlook being on the team because they know they can win. And Nick always brings a winning spirit to the kids." Teodoro, of North Caldwell, plays as a defenseman and has been part of four different sled hockey teams in Woodbridge and South Mountain for the past three years. "This past year, I started coaching the Junior team in Woodbridge because now I'm too old to be on that team," said Teodoro, who pursued playing sled hockey full time when he was a junior in high school. It all started with a flier that Teodoro came across about a sled hockey team in South Mountain when he was running track. "I used to wear braces and ran track since seventh grade, but I've always wanted to play hockey since I was little, but my parents didn't really want me to," he said. "As I got older and bigger, they let me." Spina bifida is a neural tube defect that happens in the first month of pregnancy when the spinal column doesn't close completely. Teodoro said sled hockey has given him a sense of feeling like everyone else and encourages everyone with a disability "to give sports a try." Iced sledge hockey, which is better known as sled hockey, originated at a Stockholm, Sweden, rehabilitation center in the early 1960s by a group of Swedes who were physically impaired and wanted to play hockey. By 1969, Stockholm hosted the first international ice sledge hockey match between a local club team and one from Oslo, Norway. During the 1970s, teams from Sweden and Norway played once or twice a year. Several other countries began to establish their own teams, including Great Britain in 1981, Canada in 1982, the United States in 1990, and Estonia and Japan in 1993. Clubs have been established in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Russia and Korea. The players, instead of wearing skates, each sit on top of a modified metal frame sled with two hockey skate blades. There are two sticks for each player instead of one. These sticks are about one-third the length of a regulation stick, depending on the size of the player. They also have metal picks on the butt end of the stick. Teams consist of players with different disabilities. The sport became an official event in the Lillehammer 1994 Paralympic Winter Games. Teodoro, who likes hanging out with his friends and playing guitar in his band Sunrise Atlantic, said he has his sights set on trying out for the Paralympics in 2009 to qualify for the 2010 Paralympic games, but for now is working hard and hoping to be one of those 15 players for the Adult National team this year.