Nela Lopušanová. (source: Andrej Galica/Hockey Slovakia)
The talented Slovak ice hockey player Nela Lopušanová has attracted the attention of experts and the media again, just days after she landed in the USA.
In August, the 15-year-old from Žilina started to study at Bishop Kearney High School and playing for the local Bishop Kearney Selects U19 team. In her first game, she shot four goals and recorded an assist.
“This girl is gonna set US hockey on fire,” Hockey News Hub tweeted.
Michigan goals
Despite her young age, she has already received several accolades.
At last year’s world championship for under-18 players, she was named the most valuable player of the tournament. She surprised many when she scored a so-called Michigan goal, a lacrosse-style goal scored from behind the net, during a game against Sweden.
However, she had performed the same goal multiple times before.
“For me, it’s a normal goal,” she told the International Ice Hockey Federation. “I do it at training day after day.”
As the first Slovak in history, she won the Piotr Nurowski Award for the best young athlete in Europe in winter sports for 2023. Also, Lopušanová was named the third best female ice hockey player in the world in the 2022/2023 season by the International Ice Hockey Federation.
She recently starred in Prague, where she played for Premier Ice Prospects at the World Selects International under-18 tournament just before going overseas. During this event, she scored 15 goals and assisted four times.
Hockey is her life
In a January interview with a local Slovak medium, she confessed that ice hockey means a lot to her.
“For me, hockey has been more or less my whole life since my brother and I became involved with it since we were little, and it's the most discussed topic in our family,” she said.
Despite her achievements and the media attention the young talent has received, her mother Slávka is not afraid of her not bearing the pressure. She went on to say that her older brother plays a significant role in Nela’s interest in hockey.
"We used to take him to the stadium. Nela took a hockey stick herself and played behind the boards during training,” her mother recalled. She was about four years old.
“If our son had danced ballet, she would have probably become a ballerina,” laughed Nela's mother.
