Twelve years is a long time to be away from a rink. For St. Louis' DJ Zipfel, the absence followed a 2014 crash that cost him the ability to talk.
He is back in hockey. KSDK reported Sunday, November 15, that Zipfel has returned after that devastating crash, and that Hockey Heals is helping him get back on the ice and reconnect with the sport he loves.
A Weekly Game After a Hard Turn
Hockey Heals is a weekly game for people facing life-changing situations, both physical and mental. DAWG Nation Midwest says the point is connection and support. The format is a standing skate, which matters if the hard part is not one lap but showing up again the next week.
The game started in Colorado as a way to help Van Stone return to the ice after a traumatic brain injury. In the Midwest chapter's telling, that single problem became the model. A weekly game replaced a one-time return.
Zipfel's documented turn is physical, and it is specific. The 2014 crash cost him speech, and the reported absence from hockey ran 12 years. A program organized around people who have already had their lives reordered is a closer fit than a standard skate, where the assumption is that everyone can talk through a drill and chase the same puck.
Returns That Are Not a St. Louis Roster
The wider program has published other ways back, and they should stay geographically separate from Zipfel. DAWG Nation Hockey Foundation has described Army veteran Nick Jordan on the ice after a 2020 motorcycle accident that broke his femur in three places and shattered his shin.
The same Hockey Heals coverage includes Sienna Garaffa, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a hydroplaning car accident in May 2024, and Mike Melby, whose bone cancer in 2024 led to the removal of four ribs and a portion of his sternum. None of those accounts place them on a St. Louis roster. They show the range the game was already built to hold: crashes, cancer, broken bone, brain injury, and a return to the hockey community afterward.
Denver has the progression a reader can actually follow. Rocky Mountain PBS reported that Colorado resident Jonny Landis returned to the ice on February 5, 2025, for the first time since a fall. DAWG Nation Hockey Foundation led that return and supported him through Hockey Heals. He later progressed from needing assistance to skating up and down the rink entirely on his own.
Assisted laps and a solo length of ice are different stages, and the account keeps them in that order. Landis's course is his. It is still the clearest published picture of what this program treats as a return: not a finished recovery, but time on the ice after the first time back.
A 2009 Charity, Then a Gateway City Handoff
The charity behind the games began in 2009. Rocky Mountain PBS reported that DAWG Nation Hockey Foundation added a second chapter in St. Louis in 2022, 13 years after it started. Hockey Heals was a further handoff, carried by people.
Rick and Riley Alire traveled from Colorado to pass the program to the Gateway City. DAWG Nation Midwest described the local plan without much ceremony: "We've got a strong foundation to launch this in St. Louis and are teaming up with local ice rinks to get things rolling. We're aiming for an April start."
A weekly game needs a sheet of ice on a repeating schedule. The chapter's stated route was to team up with local rinks, which puts the skate on ice the city already has. April, in that account, was an aim. The group has also reported that skating has started, without tying that start to a published calendar date.
Ice First, Trivia After
DAWG Nation Midwest said it kicked off Hockey Heals on the ice before trivia night. The St. Louis Blues Warrior Hockey group joined the first session. The launch note thanks that group and describes Hockey Heals as uniting members of the hockey community who have faced and overcome physical or mental health challenges.
Set that beside the earlier line, and the chapter is talking about two moments. One description is for people still facing a life-changing situation. The other is for people who have come through one. A weekly skate can hold both. Someone in the middle of a return, which is where KSDK's report places Zipfel, fits the first wording more tightly than the finished one.
Anyone interested can reach program director Tony Jokerst. That is the contact the Midwest chapter has published. The offer beside his name is a weekly game, and a first session that has already shared the ice with St. Louis Blues Warrior Hockey, before trivia night.
