Submitted Photo Cady MacIver takes to the ice during the Minot High Hockey Prairie Grit night in January. Cady has been a part of the Prairie Grit sled hockey program since she started school. Photo courtesy of Kara MacIver.

Cory and Kara MacIver had already relocated to Minot from McCody with their first daughter Kaylyn when they decided that they wanted to add a fourth member to their family.

Just 33 and a half weeks into their pregnancy, Cady MacIver was born. In delivery, Cady suffered a stroke that left her with a mild form of cerebral palsy. It affected the right side of her body and limits some of her movement, but it never limits her competitive spirit.

After Cady was around five or six years old, she was introduced to Prairie Grit through their sled hockey program. Right away, she did not love it.

“Either the first or second hockey practice I was at, I would not let them put the hockey helmet on me,” said Cady. “They tried, [and] I just started screaming.”

It took some time and some adjustments, but after a while, the rink was not such a bad place to be. The first few times Cady was on the ice, Cory and Kara would have to take turns walking out on the ice to push Cady around on the sled. Neither of them were very coordinated on the ice, but Cory says that seeing how Cady’s coordination and determination on the ice has grown made those early days worth it.

“To watch her go from being pushed to doing it all on her own, and now being able to watch her as she gets knocked down to be able to get up on her own too is kind of a big deal,” said Cory. “She has definitely grown and matured with the sled hockey.”

Cady is the only girl on Prairie Grit’s sled hockey team, and one of only a few girls that they play against during the season, but she is working to change that. Cady has been working to bring out some other young girls to Prairie Grit and into sled hockey.

“It’s kind of fun to watch her play too, because she doesn’t really back down,” said Cory. “She was tentative to start with, but now she’s in there mixing it up just like the boys do. The boys on the team, they see her as a teammate, not just as a female teammate. She can dish it up and she can take it too.”

Cady talked about how one of the coaches for her sled hockey team at Prairie Grit is a member of the U.S. paralympic team for sled hockey. She said that during one tournament in Minot, they would have the teams play during the day, and at night, the U.S. and Canadian sled hockey teams would hold games to let fully able-bodied people experience sled hockey.

For one game, Cady decided to bring some of her friends from school. Some of the members of the U.S. sled hockey team have either lost limbs or were born without them fully developed. For safety reasons, the players are not allowed to wear their usual prosthetics while on the sled, so they will play without another limb. Some of Cady’s friends, not used to that kind of visual, said that they were a little bit creeped out, something Cady wanted to swiftly correct.

“Once you get used to it, [you] don’t even think about it,” Cady said. “I’ve met the players, I’ve had experiences with the players, I don’t even see the prosthetic leg. I’m just saying, this is normal, it doesn’t matter if you have a prosthetic or not, you’re still human.”

Cady said that sometimes, school can be a tough place for kids with disabilities. She talked about how schools are filled with mostly able-bodied kids, so a lot of them are not used to seeing or interacting with kids with disabilities.

This past year was Cady’s first year of middle school. Kids from all the different elementary schools were coming together for the first time, and there were a lot of kids who had not seen Cady with her leg brace. Many kids were less than unkind.

“I remember I did get bullied a lot for my brace,” Cady said. “But, I know that when I’m at Prairie Grit events, people would understand [me]. For me, I don’t see the chairs or the prosthetics, and the other participants don’t see the brace on my leg, which is normal. Well, normal for them and for me.”

Cady talked about all the friends and connections that she and her family has made as members of Prairie Grit. She mentioned one of her friends, a former Prairie Grit member, who moved to Fargo and now plays on one of their local sled hockey teams. Cady and her team will often have scrimmages and games against them, and the two still laugh and joke with each other on the ice.

She says Prairie Grit has been great for helping able-bodied kids see and experience paralympic sports and have the able-bodied world experience what it is like to play in her world.

“They may think it’s weird that we play basketball in a wheelchair or if we do hockey in a sled, but once they get used to it, they’re like ‘oh it’s just like regular hockey’,” Cady said. “Here’s what I say, ‘no, it is regular hockey, just different’.”

Cady talked about a lot of the other activities that Prairie Grit has, including wheelchair basketball, gymnastics and track & field. She says she is one of the most active members of Prairie Grit, thanks in no small part to her parents, who will often sign her up for things without telling her, much to her continued shock.

“I remember a couple years ago, we were sitting at the dinner table and then my mom just dropped the news like, ‘hey I just signed you up for wheelchair basketball,’ and I’m like, what?” Cady said.

She says she liked it anyway.

“She stays active in pretty much anything that Prairie Grit offers, there’s only a few things that she hasn’t tried yet,” said Cory.

Cady says she plans to keep playing on the Prairie Grit sled hockey team. Her father says that the program is getting to a point where enough kids on the team are aging out that they might form an adult team and compete in the adult tournaments. He said that a lot of colleges have fully developed programs for adaptive sports like sled hockey. He says Southwest Minnesota State is the closest university with adaptive sports programs. He says that the University of Arizona is planning on starting a sled hockey team starting in 2027.

“The nice thing is, we haven’t really had to push her to do stuff,” Cory said. “She may drag her feet a little bit on a Saturday morning when she’s tired, but it’s usually as soon as she gets there and sees her friends, all bets are off. As long as the enthusiasm and excitement is there, we are going to continue to support her in whatever she wants to do.”

They hope that by the time Cady ages out of the youth team, there will be enough adult players and adaptive sports will be widespread enough that she can keep playing in Minot or play in college, but that’s a long way away. For now, Cady is content playing defense and tearing up the rink at home with her friends.