It was always a dream: Nela Lopušanová's journey from Slovakia to the United States

Slovakia's most promising young hockey talent plays in Rochester, NY.

(Photo: Andrea Cardin / IIHF)

As I stepped into the Tim Hortons Iceplex on a frigid, snowy Saturday morning, I observed the myriad people in attendance, all seemingly with someplace to be. Parents shepherding their kids to practice; adults, dragging bags of hockey cards up to a collector’s fair on the second floor; young kids, kicking around a soccer ball - and in the midst of it all, I wondered how many of them knew that they were in the same building as Slovakia’s most promising young hockey talent.

Nela Lopušanová was born in Žilina, Slovakia, a city of about 81,000 people, just outside of Bratislava. How is it that the 16-year-old international phenom came to attend a private high school and playing hockey nearly 4,300 miles away in Irondequoit, New York?

“It was always a dream to go to America and play hockey,” Lopušanová said when we spoke after Bishop Kearney’s 19U game that day at the Iceplex. The BK Selects, as they’re known, had just finished a weekend sweep over Belle Tire, with decisive 4-0 and 10-2 wins.

Bishop Kearney, a private Catholic college preparatory high school with an incredibly strong girls’ hockey program, was the logical choice for Lopušanová. She moved to the United States in 2023 - then just 15 years old - and has set herself on the path to play Division I college hockey and hopefully, eventually, turn pro.