PREMIERES WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4 AT 10:00 PM, ET/PT

                Like its stand-up inspiration, sled hockey is anything but a passive sport, and that’s why its disabled players like it so much.  There’s speed, there’s shooting and there’s shoving – just like the rough-and-tumble sport played on ice skates.  Lesley Stahl reports on a game that’s turning the disabled into hard-charging athletes on the next edition of 60 MINUTES SPORTS premiering Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 10:00 PM, ET/PT only on SHOWTIME.  

                Victor Calise is one of the game’s biggest boosters and a player himself.  He began playing after a 1994 mountain biking accident left him a paraplegic and wound up making the first U.S. Paralympic sled hockey team.  “It changed my life. It made me the person I am today,” he tells Stahl.  “Without sport, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”  Calise is Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities in New York. 

                Last year, he started the first New York City sled hockey team for kids.  “I know what…it’s done for me and all I ever want to do is take a kid and show him what it could do for them,” says Calise.   He recruited Edward Freedman, 15, for the New York Sled Rangers, a team partially supported by the city’s big league pro team of the same name.  “It shows that we can do different things and we can have a life outside of my disability,” says Freedman.  “Because when I am on the ice, we forget about it and just…skate.”

                Wounded warriors like Josh Misiewicz are getting into the act, too.   The team he plays for, comprised of other disabled vets, plays a rough game that 60 MINUTES SPORTS cameras caught on tape.  The game included Josh losing his temper, throwing some punches and getting ejected from the game.  Though unfortunate, the incident helps remind him and others that they are still competitive athletes.  “I took one of the ice picks to the neck and I wasn’t too happy about it,” he tells Stahl.  “If that would have happened when I had legs and I got hit in the face with a stick, I probably would have done the same thing.”

                For school-age youngsters, whose friends may be playing any number of traditional organized sports, it’s another way to add a physical element of play to their childhood.  Spencer Wolfe, 10, has cerebral palsy and in his league, each team permits a few able-bodied kids to play as well.  That allows Spencer to play in games with his non-disabled brother, Michael.  “[Sled hockey] is actually a great way for disabled people to play sports the way they want to,” Spencer says. “Because some kids feel left out sometimes when the other kids are playing sports.”

Press Contacts:   

60 MINUTES – Kevin Tedesco 212-975-2329 kev@cbsnews.com

SHOWTIME Sports – Chris DeBlasio 212-708-1633 Chris.DeBlasio@Showtime.net