Jessica Bliss

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

In the early morning dark, Joey Woodke and his combat team crept through a hilltop cemetery in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan.

The Marines monitored Taliban infiltrators who had been shooting rounds in their direction from the village below.

Woodke's team was under orders to clear the village and find the mortars.

As the sun broke, the group picked up and started walking in formation through the graveyard. That's when Woodke hit it, the pressure plate of a 20-pound improvised explosive device that would change everything.

Fast and free

Four years later, Woodke pulls a red, white and blue hockey bag through Antioch's Ford Ice Center and heads rink side to change.

He yanks a pair of pads over his head and onto his shoulders, grabs his helmet and sticks and takes off across the ice.

Woodke is relatively new to the sport. He grew up on a farm in Michigan, and somehow never touched a puck. "I couldn’t even skate," the 26-year-old college student says with a laugh. "I didn’t like the ice."

But last year, after moving to Nashville from the North, he joined a team with a few fellow Marine vets.

They were big men — physically strong and war-seasoned — but they lacked finesse. On the ice, they could go fast but couldn't stop. They often rammed into the boards, lacking the skill to handle the puck or shoot.

"We were goons," Woodke says with a grin.

But when they powered at high speed across the rink, they felt — if only for a little while — free from the injuries that have forever altered their lives.

March 29, 2012

The IED was buried too deep to kill Woodke. But it savagely shredded both his legs.

He waited 17 minutes for the medevac on that Afghan hillside. Forty-seven minutes after the blast, he was in a field hospital. The amputation happened almost instantly. Two limbs cut off above the knee.

He was 21 years old. A young man on his second deployment.

He had already been to Afghanistan once, and that time — somehow — he had come out unharmed. He mourned many friends who did not after that first tour. He often woke up in a sweat because he couldn't find the rifle that had been secured to his side.

When he again shipped out after six months at home, he was told this time they weren't going to Afghanistan. His superiors said it again and again. Then, a few days before Christmas in 2011, they entered Kuwait and got the orders. "Call your parents, you're going to Afghanistan."

March 29, 2012, was the day everything changed for Woodke in that cemetery in Helmand Province. He went straight from combat to being unable to sit up. He couldn't feed himself. He couldn't fend for himself.

He spent a year and four months in the hospital and underwent more than 30 surgeries.

A few months into his recovery, a double above-the-knee amputee came into his room to say hello. Once Woodke saw him — upright on two prosthetic legs — he thought, "I am going to be OK." Woodke knew he would walk again.

Skating, however, never entered his mind.

'Floating across the ice'

Woodke sits in a bucket mounted on the metal frame of a specially designed sled. Two blades attach to the bottom of the frame, whizzing across the frozen surface. He holds two hockey sticks instead of one, each cut short and affixed with metal picks on the butt end to propel him.

As he circles the rink, he flings pucks into the back of an empty goal. When he really gets going, he can skate almost 30 miles an hour, working up a sweat that drips from his nose onto the dark beard covering his chin.

"Being able to go on the ice and go at high speeds and be that competitive again is liberating," Woodke says. "You feel free, like you are floating across the ice."

The sport in which he now competes is called sled hockey (or sledge hockey, as it's referred to outside the United States). It follows most of the typical ice hockey rules with the exception of some of the equipment. It is full contact, with plenty of checking and skin scrapes from the stick picks.

There are three sled hockey teams in Nashville, two adult squads and one youth. On Sunday morning at Bridgestone Arena, the adult teams will scrimmage as part of the Nashville Predators' 24 Hours of Hockey. The round-the-clock event begins with the Predators game against the St. Louis Blues, and will open the arena to the public to experience all levels of the game.

A diverse cross-section of the hockey community will be represented on the ice, including the NHL, college, high school, youth, military, women’s hockey and sled hockey.

Among them will be paraplegics, players born without the use of their legs, Army veterans and three Marines who all lost legs to IEDs in combat and now compete together.

Beginning to heal

Woodke met his two Marine teammates, John Curtin and Ben Maenza, in recovery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Curtin and Maenza were buddies who had been through what he had, and were there to heal and learn to live without limbs. They bonded. Rehab was long and painful for all of them.

The first couple months, Woodke lived in a druggy haze fighting infection and going in and out of surgeries. Once he had healed some and was strong enough, physical therapists began teaching him to walk.

He started with really short legs and canes. Therapists would push limits but not to the breaking point. Learning to balance took work. Slowly, he got taller and taller prosthetics. When he was close to his original height, he got electronic knees.

Nashville Marine Ben Maenza finishes 12th in Boston Marathon cycle race

After his rehab, he went back home to Michigan, but the snow wasn't conducive to getting around, either with a wheelchair or his prosthetic legs. So he moved to Nashville to be closer to Curtin and Maenza.

That's when he learned about sled hockey.

Now, the three fly across the ice together.

And the team that once knew little more than how to body check has picked up skills and established itself as nationally competitive. They travel to Florida and Chicago and Buffalo. Woodke has been to the USA development team camp. His will participate in nationals in Detroit in April.

He loves competition. It's one of the reasons he joined the Marines. "I wanted to be the best."

But when you get hurt, he says, "you feel like you lose a little bit of yourself."

Sled hockey brings some of that edge back. And, for Woodke, that changes everything.

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.

Nashville's 24 Hours of Hockey

The Nashville Predators will celebrate the sport they love by hosting 24 Hours of Hockey, a round-the-clock event that will open up Bridgestone Arena to the public to experience all levels of the game.

A diverse cross-section of the hockey community will be represented on the ice, including the NHL, college, high school, youth, military, women’s hockey and sled hockey.

Tickets must be purchased for the event's first two games — the 2 p.m. puck drop for Nashville Predators vs. St. Louis Blues and the 5 p.m. Nashville Predators alumni game.

All events from 6:45 p.m. on Saturday through 2 p.m. on Sunday are free to spectators and open to the public.

Want to get in on the action? There are several opportunities for the public to participate. See below for a full schedule of the 24 Hours of Hockey, as well as registration for all of the participatory events.

Saturday

2-5 p.m., Nashville Predators vs. St. Louis Blues, Tickets: $38-195 at ticketmaster.com

5-6:30 p.m., Nashville Predators alumni game, Tickets: $10 at ticketmaster.com

6:45-9:45 p.m., Nashville Jr. Preds game (NA3HL)

10-11 p.m., Hockey Saves

11:15 p.m.-12:15 a.m., Hockey Saves

Sunday

12:30-2:45 a.m., MTSU vs. Mississippi State

3-4 a.m., Mighty Drunks adult league game

4:15-5:15 a.m., Trevecca club hockey

5:30-6:30 a.m., Rise and Grind adult open hockey, open to the first 26 skaters and four goalies. Register: $15 at predators.nhl.com

6:45-7:45 a.m., Nashville Fire Department hockey

8-9 a.m., Sled Predssledge hockey

9:15-10:15 a.m., Girls/women's clinic, all ages and skill levels, must supply your own equipment. Register: predators.nhl.com

10:30-11:30 a.m., Adult A-level skate, free hour of open hockey. Register: predators.nhl.com

11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Family stick time (session is full)

1-2 p.m., Predators U15 parent/child game