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IRONDEQUOIT, N.Y., and KITCHENER, Ont. — For the first three months after Nela Lopušanová moved to the United States — on the heels of going viral at the 2023 U18 women’s world hockey championship — she barely spoke to anyone.
The Slovakian teenager, who was just 14 years old when she gained worldwide attention for her lacrosse-style “Michigan” goal, had moved over four thousand miles from home to attend Bishop Kearney, a private school in Irondequoit, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester, with an elite hockey program.
In a new country, immersed in a new language, Lopušanová struggled with the language barrier.
“That summer, I had a tutor, so I learned a little bit of English, but I still wasn’t fluent or really good,” she said. “So when I came here I didn’t really talk. It was hard.”
From the moment Lopušanová scored that goal in Östersund, Sweden, life changed in an instant. She announced herself on the international stage as the breakout star — and MVP — of the 2023 U18 women’s worlds, emerging as one of the best young female players on the planet and a viral sensation.
At Bishop Kearney, she’s spent three years growing into something more: a truly generational talent with a unique and creative skill set.
“We always call her ‘The Video Game’ because she does things that NHLers are doing and she’s only 17 years old,” said Cari Coen, the director of hockey operations at Bishop Kearney. “I think she has the potential to be the best player in the world.”
This week, Lopušanová will return for her fourth and final U18 tournament before taking yet another bold leap in her young career.
In the days after Lopušanová pulled off the Michigan goal, attention quickly followed.
The initial video of the goal posted to Twitter by the International Ice Hockey Federation garnered over 1 million views. Lopušanová won the top spot on ESPN’s “SportsCenter Top 10” and was trending on the website Elite Prospects as thousands of fans tried to learn more about her. VLCI Žilina, the parent club of Lopušanová’s youth boys team back in Slovakia, even started to sell her jersey at the team store.
Before the goal that made her famous, Lopušanová had been a talented albeit relatively unknown 14-year-old. All of a sudden, she was saddled with media obligations, many of them in English despite “not understanding anything” in the language. Lopušanová was also burdened by the weight of expectations to lead her team, grow the game in her home country, and keep the women’s game in the spotlight.
Ľubomíra Kožanová, the manager of the Slovak women’s national teams at the time, called Lopušanová the U18 team’s “biggest asset” and “the future of the Slovak national women’s team.”
“In Slovakia, we still have a low number of players,” said Kožanová back in 2023. “I hope Nela’s effect will be very good for us.”
After U18s, Lopušanová flew from Sweden to Italy for the European Youth Olympic Festival, where she represented Slovakia’s U16 team. After her performance in Östersund, she was expected to lead the team to the podium. Lopušanová delivered, winning player of the tournament and winning a silver medal, but it came at a cost.
“It was really hard because I didn’t get to go home,” she said. “I just went from one (tournament) to another. I was really tired and all the media was a lot.”
“There was a lot of pressure and people expecting big things from me.”
Lopušanová’s star turn at the 2023 tournament also brought the kind of opportunity she’d been dreaming of. She grew up in Žilina, the fourth-largest city in Slovakia, and first stood on skates when she was 2 years old, inspired by her older brother Simon. She mostly played boys hockey and eventually in a women’s professional league, the Slovak Women’s Extraliga.
Along the way, she grew as a player — constantly stick-handling, working on “fun” tricks and shooting pucks — and found her inspiration as a fan of the sport. Like so many players of her generation, Lopušanová watched a steady diet of Patrick Kane YouTube highlights — it’s why she wears No. 88. With a teammate, she discovered University of Wisconsin men’s hockey games that featured future Montreal Canadiens star Cole Caufield. Eventually, she found the women’s program.
“Then it all started,” she said. “It’s always been my dream to get there.”
In Lopušanová’s mind, with few elite youth hockey opportunities in Slovakia, the path to the powerhouse women’s hockey program in Madison ran through an American high school. After her U18 worlds debut, plenty of schools came knocking, including Bishop Kearney.
Coen was among the coaches who watched Lopušanová in Sweden and thought, ‘This kid’s the real deal.” Shortly after, Coen and other Bishop Kearney staff members got Lopušanová and her family on a FaceTime call to pitch their program.
“If you have goals and dreams to be an Olympian, a Division I player, an All-American, BK is the place to do it because you have all the resources and the culture and environment that will push you every day,” she said.
For most students, Bishop Kearney is a private Catholic prep school. But for the 100-plus athletes who reside on campus, it’s also an elite hockey program with daily access to ice and training facilities, including a gym and multiple shooting rooms exclusive to players. Since it launched in 2015-16, the BK girls hockey program has sent 76 players to NCAA Division I programs and eight to the Wisconsin Badgers specifically, including 2026 U.S. Olympians Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards.
That’s all Lopušanová needed to hear.
Less than two months after U18s, she committed to moving across the world.
“I wanted to leave my home and just do something for myself and grow as a person, and this is the best place I can do that,” she said about her decision. “When I got on a call with my coaches here, they were incredible. I knew they had a lot of alums who came here, so I knew this was a great program for me.”
In August 2023, Lopušanová arrived in Rochester with just her hockey bag, one suitcase of essentials and a small stuffed tiger from her mom, as a gift to remember home. The first few months without her family were a difficult adjustment for Lopušanová. Then 15 years old, she was thousands of miles from home, working overtime to learn English, and playing on the school’s under-19 roster.
Some of those struggles seemed to bleed into her return to U18 worlds in January 2024, where she only scored two goals and three points in five games — just one quarter of her production from the year prior.
“None of us can really relate to that weight and that pressure that she’s borne since such a young age,” said Bishop Kearney head coach Chelsea Walkland. “I’d say she handles it with an extreme amount of grace and maturity.”
While she was away in Switzerland, Lopušanová started to miss the school and her teammates back in the United States. And when she got back to Rochester, she started to settle in more comfortably both on and off the ice.
With media coverage slowing down after U18s, in many ways, she was able to be a regular teenager who enjoys going to Chipotle or Starbucks with her friends, and learning how to cook. According to Coen, Lopušanová makes the best quesadillas in the girls hockey dorm.
On the ice, however, she was anything but a regular teen. After just one season at Bishop Kearney, it was clear Lopušanová was different. She scored 35 goals and 81 points in 59 games as a 15-year-old in the U19 league. At U.S. nationals, six weeks after her 16th birthday, she led all skaters — some of the top U19 players in the world — in scoring en route to the national championship game, where Bishop Kearney lost in overtime to the juggernaut Shattuck-St Mary’s team.
With such an impressive debut, Lopušanová got a call from the best women’s college hockey program in the world — and her dream school — on the very first day coaches are permitted to contact players after their sophomore year.
Unbeknownst to her, while Lopušanová was discovering the program online, the Badgers were discovering her, too. According to Dan Koch, the longtime Badgers associate coach, Lopušanová first got on the team’s radar on social media as she tore up boys hockey in Slovakia and was scoring Michigan goals at lower-level U18 tournaments for Slovakia.
“Someone like Nela, you start to hear about and see on social media and you’re like OK, this player is special,” Koch said. “We feel like she’s one of those once-in-a-generation type players, someone throughout her four years is going to be very impactful, whether it’s like Caroline Harvey, or Casey O’Brien or Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight, Brianna Decker … She’s got that potential and she showed that early on in her career with her creativity.”
By August, Lopušanová committed to Wisconsin before ever stepping foot on campus.
In the two seasons since, she’s put up 146 points in 96 games, won a high school national championship and another U18 worlds MVP, becoming the first player ever to win the award twice. (She also won a Division 2 flag football state championship, and was nominated by the Buffalo Bills as player of the year).
But the point totals and trophy case don’t quite capture the full scope of the player she’s become.
“She’s an artist,” said Walkland.
Lopušanová is a dynamic and highly creative player who can generate offense in what often seems like an endless amount of ways. She’s the kind of player who jumps off the screen; her talent is obvious, even if you’re new to the game.
“If Nela has a puck on her stick, her teammates, her coaches, the fans — they’re up on their feet and they’re curious about what’s gonna happen next, because any time she’s got (the puck) or she’s on the ice, something special can happen,” Walkland said. “The creative side and that joyful side of her game, when she’s in her flow state and she’s locked in, it’s just poetic. It’s so playful, and it’s creative. It’s a lot of fun to watch.”
She’s also a very mature player, with the hockey sense to understand when the time is right for tricks and when she needs to play in system, or maybe just chip a puck into the zone. Last year, Lopušanová said she focused on getting stronger in the gym to win more puck battles and focused extra sessions on getting pucks off the wall in the defensive zone. This year, she’s spent a lot of time working on her shot — specifically aiming short-side from the left faceoff circle. She also does well to draw defenders to her to make plays for her teammates.
“I’d say where she’s actually at her best — and (maybe) where she gets more joy — is when she’s setting her teammates up,” said Walkland. “Naturally her game lends to it with her vision and her ability to create time and space. … She’s a real dual threat.”
It’s the kind of complete package her coaches say could make her the best player in the world one day. Beyond college, Lopušanová has dreams of leading Slovakia to the Olympics and eventually playing in the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
But before that, she has one more U18 tournament to attend in Nova Scotia, where she only needs seven more points to match Kendall Coyne Schofield’s all-time tournament scoring record (33 points). When she sat down with The Athletic last month, Lopušanová wasn’t aware of that stat, but it’s something she’ll keep in mind as she tries to push her team forward.
“I want to be the best and I want to help the team,” she said. “I know when I’m at my best, I can help the team the most. And I feel like those goals and those points help my team to win.”
Could one of those goals be another million-view trick shot?
“We’ll see,” she said with a smile. “I have some (tricks) in my pocket.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
NHL, Women's Hockey
2026 The Athletic Media Company
Continue reading...
The Slovakian teenager, who was just 14 years old when she gained worldwide attention for her lacrosse-style “Michigan” goal, had moved over four thousand miles from home to attend Bishop Kearney, a private school in Irondequoit, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester, with an elite hockey program.
In a new country, immersed in a new language, Lopušanová struggled with the language barrier.
“That summer, I had a tutor, so I learned a little bit of English, but I still wasn’t fluent or really good,” she said. “So when I came here I didn’t really talk. It was hard.”
From the moment Lopušanová scored that goal in Östersund, Sweden, life changed in an instant. She announced herself on the international stage as the breakout star — and MVP — of the 2023 U18 women’s worlds, emerging as one of the best young female players on the planet and a viral sensation.
At Bishop Kearney, she’s spent three years growing into something more: a truly generational talent with a unique and creative skill set.
“We always call her ‘The Video Game’ because she does things that NHLers are doing and she’s only 17 years old,” said Cari Coen, the director of hockey operations at Bishop Kearney. “I think she has the potential to be the best player in the world.”
This week, Lopušanová will return for her fourth and final U18 tournament before taking yet another bold leap in her young career.
In the days after Lopušanová pulled off the Michigan goal, attention quickly followed.
The initial video of the goal posted to Twitter by the International Ice Hockey Federation garnered over 1 million views. Lopušanová won the top spot on ESPN’s “SportsCenter Top 10” and was trending on the website Elite Prospects as thousands of fans tried to learn more about her. VLCI Žilina, the parent club of Lopušanová’s youth boys team back in Slovakia, even started to sell her jersey at the team store.
Before the goal that made her famous, Lopušanová had been a talented albeit relatively unknown 14-year-old. All of a sudden, she was saddled with media obligations, many of them in English despite “not understanding anything” in the language. Lopušanová was also burdened by the weight of expectations to lead her team, grow the game in her home country, and keep the women’s game in the spotlight.
Ľubomíra Kožanová, the manager of the Slovak women’s national teams at the time, called Lopušanová the U18 team’s “biggest asset” and “the future of the Slovak national women’s team.”
“In Slovakia, we still have a low number of players,” said Kožanová back in 2023. “I hope Nela’s effect will be very good for us.”
After U18s, Lopušanová flew from Sweden to Italy for the European Youth Olympic Festival, where she represented Slovakia’s U16 team. After her performance in Östersund, she was expected to lead the team to the podium. Lopušanová delivered, winning player of the tournament and winning a silver medal, but it came at a cost.
“It was really hard because I didn’t get to go home,” she said. “I just went from one (tournament) to another. I was really tired and all the media was a lot.”
“There was a lot of pressure and people expecting big things from me.”
Lopušanová’s star turn at the 2023 tournament also brought the kind of opportunity she’d been dreaming of. She grew up in Žilina, the fourth-largest city in Slovakia, and first stood on skates when she was 2 years old, inspired by her older brother Simon. She mostly played boys hockey and eventually in a women’s professional league, the Slovak Women’s Extraliga.
Along the way, she grew as a player — constantly stick-handling, working on “fun” tricks and shooting pucks — and found her inspiration as a fan of the sport. Like so many players of her generation, Lopušanová watched a steady diet of Patrick Kane YouTube highlights — it’s why she wears No. 88. With a teammate, she discovered University of Wisconsin men’s hockey games that featured future Montreal Canadiens star Cole Caufield. Eventually, she found the women’s program.
“Then it all started,” she said. “It’s always been my dream to get there.”
In Lopušanová’s mind, with few elite youth hockey opportunities in Slovakia, the path to the powerhouse women’s hockey program in Madison ran through an American high school. After her U18 worlds debut, plenty of schools came knocking, including Bishop Kearney.
Coen was among the coaches who watched Lopušanová in Sweden and thought, ‘This kid’s the real deal.” Shortly after, Coen and other Bishop Kearney staff members got Lopušanová and her family on a FaceTime call to pitch their program.
“If you have goals and dreams to be an Olympian, a Division I player, an All-American, BK is the place to do it because you have all the resources and the culture and environment that will push you every day,” she said.
For most students, Bishop Kearney is a private Catholic prep school. But for the 100-plus athletes who reside on campus, it’s also an elite hockey program with daily access to ice and training facilities, including a gym and multiple shooting rooms exclusive to players. Since it launched in 2015-16, the BK girls hockey program has sent 76 players to NCAA Division I programs and eight to the Wisconsin Badgers specifically, including 2026 U.S. Olympians Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards.
That’s all Lopušanová needed to hear.
Less than two months after U18s, she committed to moving across the world.
“I wanted to leave my home and just do something for myself and grow as a person, and this is the best place I can do that,” she said about her decision. “When I got on a call with my coaches here, they were incredible. I knew they had a lot of alums who came here, so I knew this was a great program for me.”
In August 2023, Lopušanová arrived in Rochester with just her hockey bag, one suitcase of essentials and a small stuffed tiger from her mom, as a gift to remember home. The first few months without her family were a difficult adjustment for Lopušanová. Then 15 years old, she was thousands of miles from home, working overtime to learn English, and playing on the school’s under-19 roster.
Some of those struggles seemed to bleed into her return to U18 worlds in January 2024, where she only scored two goals and three points in five games — just one quarter of her production from the year prior.
“None of us can really relate to that weight and that pressure that she’s borne since such a young age,” said Bishop Kearney head coach Chelsea Walkland. “I’d say she handles it with an extreme amount of grace and maturity.”
While she was away in Switzerland, Lopušanová started to miss the school and her teammates back in the United States. And when she got back to Rochester, she started to settle in more comfortably both on and off the ice.
With media coverage slowing down after U18s, in many ways, she was able to be a regular teenager who enjoys going to Chipotle or Starbucks with her friends, and learning how to cook. According to Coen, Lopušanová makes the best quesadillas in the girls hockey dorm.
On the ice, however, she was anything but a regular teen. After just one season at Bishop Kearney, it was clear Lopušanová was different. She scored 35 goals and 81 points in 59 games as a 15-year-old in the U19 league. At U.S. nationals, six weeks after her 16th birthday, she led all skaters — some of the top U19 players in the world — in scoring en route to the national championship game, where Bishop Kearney lost in overtime to the juggernaut Shattuck-St Mary’s team.
With such an impressive debut, Lopušanová got a call from the best women’s college hockey program in the world — and her dream school — on the very first day coaches are permitted to contact players after their sophomore year.
Unbeknownst to her, while Lopušanová was discovering the program online, the Badgers were discovering her, too. According to Dan Koch, the longtime Badgers associate coach, Lopušanová first got on the team’s radar on social media as she tore up boys hockey in Slovakia and was scoring Michigan goals at lower-level U18 tournaments for Slovakia.
“Someone like Nela, you start to hear about and see on social media and you’re like OK, this player is special,” Koch said. “We feel like she’s one of those once-in-a-generation type players, someone throughout her four years is going to be very impactful, whether it’s like Caroline Harvey, or Casey O’Brien or Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight, Brianna Decker … She’s got that potential and she showed that early on in her career with her creativity.”
By August, Lopušanová committed to Wisconsin before ever stepping foot on campus.
In the two seasons since, she’s put up 146 points in 96 games, won a high school national championship and another U18 worlds MVP, becoming the first player ever to win the award twice. (She also won a Division 2 flag football state championship, and was nominated by the Buffalo Bills as player of the year).
But the point totals and trophy case don’t quite capture the full scope of the player she’s become.
“She’s an artist,” said Walkland.
Lopušanová is a dynamic and highly creative player who can generate offense in what often seems like an endless amount of ways. She’s the kind of player who jumps off the screen; her talent is obvious, even if you’re new to the game.
“If Nela has a puck on her stick, her teammates, her coaches, the fans — they’re up on their feet and they’re curious about what’s gonna happen next, because any time she’s got (the puck) or she’s on the ice, something special can happen,” Walkland said. “The creative side and that joyful side of her game, when she’s in her flow state and she’s locked in, it’s just poetic. It’s so playful, and it’s creative. It’s a lot of fun to watch.”
She’s also a very mature player, with the hockey sense to understand when the time is right for tricks and when she needs to play in system, or maybe just chip a puck into the zone. Last year, Lopušanová said she focused on getting stronger in the gym to win more puck battles and focused extra sessions on getting pucks off the wall in the defensive zone. This year, she’s spent a lot of time working on her shot — specifically aiming short-side from the left faceoff circle. She also does well to draw defenders to her to make plays for her teammates.
“I’d say where she’s actually at her best — and (maybe) where she gets more joy — is when she’s setting her teammates up,” said Walkland. “Naturally her game lends to it with her vision and her ability to create time and space. … She’s a real dual threat.”
It’s the kind of complete package her coaches say could make her the best player in the world one day. Beyond college, Lopušanová has dreams of leading Slovakia to the Olympics and eventually playing in the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
But before that, she has one more U18 tournament to attend in Nova Scotia, where she only needs seven more points to match Kendall Coyne Schofield’s all-time tournament scoring record (33 points). When she sat down with The Athletic last month, Lopušanová wasn’t aware of that stat, but it’s something she’ll keep in mind as she tries to push her team forward.
“I want to be the best and I want to help the team,” she said. “I know when I’m at my best, I can help the team the most. And I feel like those goals and those points help my team to win.”
Could one of those goals be another million-view trick shot?
“We’ll see,” she said with a smile. “I have some (tricks) in my pocket.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
NHL, Women's Hockey
2026 The Athletic Media Company
Continue reading...
