The interest in law was sparked early, when Denna Laing was working as a victim witness advocate in a district attorney’s office after graduating from Princeton University, while playing professional hockey for the Boston Blades and then Boston Pride.
She was in court every day, working with assistant district attorneys, walking victims and witnesses through the process, through what they would face in court.
And in December of 2015, she submitted her first law school application, a step toward her dream of joining those attorneys in passing the bar and working in law.
One week later, her life changed.
Laing suffered a spinal cord injury on Dec. 31, 2015, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, as the Pride of the National Women’s Hockey League played Les Canadiennes de Montréal of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League as part of NHL Winter Classic weekend. She crashed headfirst into the boards near the end of the first period and was paralyzed from the chest down. Laing shattered her C5 vertebra in front and fractured the C4, C5 and C6 vertebrae in the back.
Law school fell down the list of priorities.
“Had to kind of put that on hold for these years, where I was trying to rehab,” she said. “Honestly, I started to think that I wasn’t going to get back to it, just because I have such a priority with my rehabilitation schedule.”
But as hybrid programs started popping up, partially because of the coronavirus pandemic, the option of going to law school began to take on a new shine, a new veneer of possibility. She took the LSAT again -- her score had expired -- and returned to the classroom last year, now able to take courses online and juggle homework with rehab work, fitting the law into her life.
It’s just one example of the persevering spirit, the desire to move forward and push past her disability, that Laing has shown over the nearly 10 years since she was injured. And because of that, the NHL and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation will be honoring Laing at a reception in her hometown of Boston on Tuesday. She will be presented with the NHL Foundation Athlete Leadership Award at the fundraiser, which is called Go Forward: Celebrating the Power of Hockey to Break Barriers.
It’s all a part of the 4 Nations Face-Off, which moved from Montreal to Boston on Sunday, and the Reeve Hockey Classic, a game between the United States and Canada national sled hockey teams, to be played on Wednesday at Kasabuski Rink in Saugus, Massachusetts.
The award, which recognizes Laing for leadership and advocacy for spinal cord injury awareness, will be given at an event that will celebrate a commitment to adaptive sports, particularly sled hockey, and the fostering of inclusive communities for individuals with disabilities.
Not only is Laing excited for the award, she’s thrilled about what it means for the relationships going forward.
“I’m excited to see this partnership between the Reeve Foundation, the NHL and the NHL Foundation and the inclusion of sled hockey,” said Laing, 33. “Obviously I’m a big proponent of inclusion and to see that here and to see the NHL really digging in and supporting is really, really nice.”
The Reeve Foundation has been a part of Laing’s story since almost the beginning. Less than 48 hours after the injury, a sequence of connections put her in touch with Alan T. Brown, the director of new partner engagement at the Reeve Foundation, who is also a quadriplegic. Brown is used to getting the call when someone has a spinal cord injury, used to helping families find the resources they need, used to talking them through the ripple effects.
“We’ve watched her thrive,” Brown said. “We’ve watched her come from very little to going to Journey Forward to working out to going to Louisville and getting implanted with a stimulator.
“Things are just kind of coming together. Then the most important part of it with Denna is she’s going to be a lawyer. It took her a little bit longer, but that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s OK. That’s part of what people need to get out there: We might be sitting here, but we’re not sitting still, we’re all still moving.”
Laing continues to work with Journey Forward, a nonprofit organization in Canton, Massachusetts, that works to improve the lives of those with spinal cord injuries, going for 10 hours each week. It is work on standing, on strengthening her body, on using the stimulator, all while focusing on daily living issues.
“When we think about what it means to be an athlete, what it means to be a hockey player, all the things we think about -- resilience, competitive, always looking to be better, [and] that always looking out and giving back -- all of those things combine [to form] Denna,” said Susan Cohig, NHL executive vice president, club business affairs, who has been a mentor to Laing since her injury. “I’ve seen how she’s tackled her challenges, how she’s not let anything provide limitations.”
That’s through physical therapy, through experimental treatments, through her advocacy of the disability experience.
“She lives life to the fullest and then she documents what that experience is for her because she really wants to tell the story of what it means to have a disability and try and navigate the world,” Cohig said. “She doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges, she doesn’t try and minimize it. It’s like, ‘This is my lived experience, and you should know it.’”
