Unplug This Blog!
RSS Feeds
Team Canada sledge hockey players celebrate a goal. (Photo courtesy of Hockey Canada)
March 11, 2009
Sledge hockey a best bet for fans at 2010 Winter Games
It's been more than a week since I took my son to the Four Nations Sledge Hockey Tournament gold medal final at UBC's upgraded UBC Thunderbird Arena. And I still can't stop talking about it.
Last night, I joined my beer hockey teammates in a discussion of just how, for instance, these sledge hockey players manage to wrist a puck, one-handed, into the top of a hockey net. And then there's the matter of the collisions that occur in a high-level sledge hockey game.
Body checks in sledge hockey can be spectacular and brutal. And once someone has you lined up, it's near impossible to get out of the way. Think of bumper cars that actually go fast, and which have no bumpers.
In case you missed it, Canada won the gold medal final at UBC 2-1 in a shootout. That's all that mattered to my five-year-old son, who is disappointed with any hockey game that doesn't go to a shootout. And what a shootout it was.
You'd think that with goaltenders on a sled, the advantage in a shootout would swing to the shooter. Not in this game.
Four shooters on each team were foiled by U.S. netminder Steve Cash and Canadian stopper Paul Rosen before Canadian defenceman Adam Dixon scored on a forehand deke. Rosen stopped Chris Manns of the U.S. to go a perfect 5-for-5 and give Canada the gold.
As reigning Paralympic champions, Canada will be the favourite again going into the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
Watching the Canadian sledge hockey team play could be one of the best bets for fans at the Winter Games, so if you're interested, keep the date of May 6, 2009 in mind. That's the day that tickets to sledge hockey – priced between $20 and $50 – and all other 2010 Paralympic Winter Games tickets will go on sale.
Among the other prime Paralympic Winter Games tickets will be any amputee skiing event that involves BC Hydro's own Lauren Woolstencroft. After winning mutliple medals at the last Games, the BC Hydro engineer-in-training has served notice that she's the skier to beat again – she just won four of five events at the recent IPC World Championships in Korea.
You can follow Woolstencroft's progress and thoughts leading up to 2010 as she writes A Skier's Diary on bchydro.com. This week, she's in Whistler for the IPC World Cup finals, an event that's free to the public.
Rob Klovance is managing editor of bchydro.com.
Go to the Unplug This Blog! main page
The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of BC Hydro.
In the spotlight
2010 Paralympic Winter Games tickets will go on sale May 6, 2009.
Follow amputee skiing star Lauren Woolstencroft's progress leading up to the 2010 Paralaympic Winter Games via A Skier's Diary.
Did you know?
Ice on the floor of the players' benches, penalty boxes and through the tunnel to each dressing room at the rebuilt, 7,500-seat, Thunderbird Arena allows sledge hockey players to glide directly from the playing surface into those areas.
Source: BC Hydro
