A Boston-based nonprofit brings Volt hockey, “a perfect sport” for people with physical disabilities, to the United States

Marley Robinson doesn’t see himself as an athletic person. She has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic condition that affects nerves and muscles, and says she was never drawn to sports because of her disability.

But on a Saturday afternoon in Roxbury, Robinson, who just graduated from Northeastern University last week, sped through a gym playing volt hockey, a sport for people with physical disabilities that was introduced to the United States by the nonprofit Boston Self becomes help center.

According to Robinson, Volt Hockey is built for people like her who have limited upper and lower body mobility and haven’t tried many adaptive sports. At first she was reluctant to start playing because her own wheelchair is perfectly adapted to her body. But once she tried Volt hockey, she was “hooked.”

“It’s a perfect sport for me because it’s basically like driving my own power chair in a more competitive form,” she said before the practice.

Volt hockey is played indoors on a hard surface, typically a gym floor, using purpose-built wooden electric wheelchairs with plastic hockey stick paddles on the end. Players can go up to 10 miles per hour as they dodge and spin around the court, typically playing three-on-three hockey trying to outplay the other team. The chairs are operated manually with a joystick, so that people with restricted upper body movement can also play.

Behold: Volt hockey, the new adaptive sport, is coming to Boston

Organizers say the fast-paced sport originated in Denmark in the 1990s and spread across Europe and then to Canada. Jim Wice, president of the Boston Self Help Center and director of Accessibility and Disability Resources at Wellesley College, is excited about bringing Volt hockey to the area.

“I’m involved a lot with disability services and adaptive sports. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “A floor-to-ceiling wooden wheelchair with a pinball machine for playing hockey in the gym – absolutely unique for me.”

Wice, who also plays on the Boston Brakers, a power-chair football team, says the sport fills a gap in the adaptive sports landscape.

“This isn’t wheelchair basketball, it’s not quad rugby, it’s not sit skiing or sled hockey,” he said. “This is for people who, you know, have some significant mobility limitations that seem kind of left out in adaptive sports and leisure activities.”

Wice discovered volt hockey from a Boston Self Help Center donor who had been traveling in Europe and came across the sport. Last fall, this donor helped the non-profit organization buy eight of the specialty chairs, which are only made in Denmark. Throughout the year they have hosted practices to introduce potential players to the sport, including through a partnership with Northeastern’s new disabled student group, of which Robinson was President and co-founder.

“Everyone who’s kind of sat down on the chairs, kind of falls in love with the sport,” Wice said.

Robinson has already been to some training sessions and brought a group of friends, some disabled and some not, to the Tobin Community Center in Roxbury, where they exercised and scrimped. And as she smashed into her opponents and passed the ball to her teammates, a smile wouldn’t leave her face as parents and friends cheered her on.

“I’m very competitive. So it’s nice to be doing something to release that energy and get it out of me,” she said. “Sometimes people kind of hit each other. So it can get violent, it can get a little rowdy at times, which is fun.”

Juan Carlos Ramírez-Tapia, a South End resident who is paraplegic and also plays power soccer, has already fallen in love with the sport. He says the unique chairs level the playing field for players of all abilities.

“The beauty of this sport is that as long as you are able to move that joystick and have some skill with it, the level of the field is balanced for everyone and people of different ages – seniors, young adults, children, they – can participate “, he says.

Ramírez-Tapia says the pandemic has particularly isolated people with disabilities, and the new sport encourages a sense of community. Robinson agrees.

“It’s really great just because it’s there [are] not many things disabled people can do together as a group,” she said. “So it’s really great to have an active activity that you can do together to build a team and just do social stuff.”

“This is for people who, you know, have some significant mobility limitations that seem kind of left out in adaptive sports and leisure activities.”

-Jim Wice, Boston Self Help Center

At the last practice session, Joey Chorzewski intercepted a pass from his teammate and quickly maneuvered his chair around a defender for a perfectly placed goal. It was the first time he had scored in a sport.

“It felt incredible,” he said.

Wice hopes that as more people like Chorzewski find joy in the sport, the sport will continue to grow in Boston and across the country. If they raise enough money, the players plan to travel to Sweden for World Cup Volt Hockey in September. The United States has never sent a team and Wice is hoping this Boston-based group, including Robinson, can be the first.

“One thing that I think about, that I’ve thought about in football, and that I think about in volt hockey, is that it’s something like the movie ‘Field of Dreams,'” he said. “If you build it, they will come.”