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Editor's note: This story has been edited to fix a redundancy.
The first time 12-year-old Vance Hooper-Christensen prepared for the ice, his mother questioned the gear.
Vance has Kabuki syndrome, a genetic malformation which causes him brain, skull and spine issues, gastrointestinal issues and different learning abilities and understandings. His head is fragile, and while April Hooper-Christensen had been cautious about contact sports for her son, she also jumped at the opportunity for him to participate with the Dallas Stars Adaptive Sports Rookie Program.
“Paranoid mama was like, ‘How good are these helmets?’” April said.
However, the staff and volunteers helped her work through the anxiety. “They listened to my worries and walked us through it.”
Vance didn’t wait to trial that fragile test. His first time on the ice, he fell three times, once flat on his back. All the volunteers stopped and made sure that his mom was okay.
“I’m broken in,” she said with a laugh, a year after that first day.
In the meantime, Vance has gained not only hockey skills and a team, but self-esteem and an identity. He even wears his hair in what he calls his hockey-player haircut – also known as a mullet.
“He’s normal with this group… that normal is with air quotes, because not any of us are normal,” April said. Yet with the Adaptive Sports Rookies, all the athletes are all in the same place, learning to skate, learning to hit a puck.
Bryce Larance, age 14, found his team with the sled hockey rookies, another arm of the Dallas Stars Adaptive Sports.
A natural athlete, according to his mom Cheryl Larance, Bryce has cerebral palsy and needs to use a walker for medium distances and a wheelchair for long distances, but plays basketball from his wheelchair in the driveway and has a “terrific” throwing arm.
“He told us from when he was little that he wanted to be part of a team. He wanted a coach. He wanted to win. He wanted to lose. He just wanted to be part of a team,” Cheryl said.
The Larance family tried sled hockey as soon as they found out about it, commuting from Fort Worth to participate – a drive that Cheryl gladly makes so her son not only can participate, but has the option to seriously compete.
Bryce will finish his first sled hockey season at the end of April, but he’s already planning the future. He’s got his eye on the Paralympics, so much so that, “he knows the year,” Cheryl said.
Bryce not only gained a team but role models. Cheryl said the coaches are also in sleds and have high expectations for the athletes.
“When you are in wheelchair, you’re constantly looking up or being looked down upon,” Cheryl said. “In sled hockey, everyone is at the same level.”
The benefits of the program have been mental, emotional and physical.
“It’s a real sport you can go somewhere in,” Cheryl said. The men’s sled team travels and competes at the national championships. Bryce isn’t quite ready for that, but he has been invited to practice with the adult men, and Cheryl doesn’t see anything that will stop Bryce from participating in the future.
“My heart is so full and happy knowing this program is out there,” she said.
The Dallas Stars Adaptive Sports program is young, starting in October 2023, though the Dallas Stars Warrior Hockey for disabled veterans and Dallas Stars Sled Hockey teams are more established, said Andy Gibson, general manager of the Children’s Health StarCenter in Farmers Branch and executive director of the Dallas Stars Adaptive Sports Program.
With a board of directors with first-hand experience with the issues the Adaptive Sports Program addresses, Gibson’s group of volunteers brought all three programs together under the Dallas Stars Foundation’s non-profit umbrella as Dallas Stars Adaptive Sports.
“We kind of just had this Avengers-type style of ‘Let’s see what we come up with,’” Gibson said.
“When we got together, it was like pouring gasoline on the fire,” Kevin Krekeler, director of Adaptive Hockey, said.
As athletes themselves, and fathers of children with Down syndrome, both Gibson and Krekeler expressed a desire to make sure that everyone has an ability to play hockey, no matter their physical, social, emotional or intellectual abilities.
“When it comes to teaching someone how to play hockey, it may look a little different, but the concepts are universal,” Gibson said. “The Dallas Stars have been developing hockey players for a very long time.”
All arms of the adaptive program follow three learning phases: Adaptive Rookies is a free, four-week-long try it stage. Phase 2 is a learn-to-play hockey academy with weekly skills-based practices to help players improve their skills with the skates, puck and team environment. Phase 3 is the team-based experience, which includes weekly practice and one game monthly, the Adaptive Jamboree, which allows all three disciplines to play on the same day.
“To date, we’ve been able to cover the cost of their equipment,” thanks to the Dallas Stars Alumni Association, the adaptive sports program’s largest supporter, Gibson said. Athletes also receive the same Adaptive Sports-branded uniform, reinforcing their membership onto the team.
The 2024-2025 season wrapped up in February and included more than 150 athletes, and there is still room to grow, Gibson said. The spring season started in March.
The Dallas Stars Warriors have become the backbone of the entire program, Gibson said. There are 200 Stars Warriors across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in the Stars’ database, 75-80 who actively participate in the sport. Ten to 15 volunteer weekly with the other aspects of the adaptive sports program.
As much as the players benefit from the program, Gibson said he thinks the parents might benefit even more because they connect, support each other and provide advice as far as medical care and logistics as well as parenting.
The parents have created a village, April said. “The other parents get us with our funny, quirky kids… we literally break bread together. It’s wonderful… it’s beautiful because we all help each other out.”
Like April, Krekeler said the relationships parents build once they trust their kids are safe on the ice are as valuable as the program is for the athletes.
“They now have an hour to themselves to build their relationships,” Krekeler said.
Krekeler said he came to Adaptive Hockey when his son Everett, now 10, was 5 and wanted to play hockey. Krekeler said he’ll always support anything Everett, who has Down syndrome, wants to do in life, but as an athlete himself, “I was very mindful that at some point this sport may become too complex, too fast, too whatever.”
However, he has since discovered that hockey has opportunities for all people, no matter what disabilities they may have.
“Adaptive hockey can be for a player for as long as you need it or whenever you need it,” he said. As an example, he said that it can be great for people with overwhelming anxieties, because they can start in an environment that is a less stimulating than a regular hockey program. Some people may graduate out of the program and move on to a regular hockey program.
Age is also no matter. Krekeler said Adaptive Hockey works for young children, teens as well as for adults. “Hockey is hockey is hockey,” he said.
