Video transcript

Canada’s favourite game is everyone’s game. The Ice Bullets in Essex-Kent, Ontario, are proving it with their championship-winning sledge hockey team that integrates players with disabilities and those without.

“Folks can come out of any ability or disability,” explains team manager Mike Simard.

While Ice Bullets players are of all ages and abilities, there’s one thing that’s consistent among them: they play the game in true hockey fashion. Each player’s speed, skill and team spirit are obvious — it’s really just the equipment that’s different.

Sledge hockey players sit in a special sled that has a skate blade attached underneath. They use two sticks with ice picks on the bottom to move themselves along the ice, and to shoot and pass the puck. Mike says this allows people with mobility disabilities to take part in the sport as anyone else does.

“When you feel that you have something you are able to participate in, especially Canada’s sport, any other way that another person could, I think that’s a fantastic thing,” he remarks.

Another fantastic thing is the Ice Bullets’ accessible practice arena — something that has no doubt helped them in winning their last two league championships. The South Windsor Recreation Complex offers the players accessible change rooms, bathrooms and showers, and wider entrances onto the rink so people using a wheelchair can get onto the ice before transferring into the sleds.

Players Dave Grenier and Tim Stewart say they fell in love with the sport the first time they tried it, and have been hooked ever since.

“It’s quite intense and a lot of fun,” says Tim.

While Dave says he’s learned a lot of life lessons playing with the Ice Bullets, Tim says there are also important life lessons being learned by those outside of the team.

“It has made people look at me a lot different,” he explains. “I have family members who can’t believe what we do, and friends who are just amazed at what we do now.”

Mike says that’s what the idea behind inclusive sledge hockey really comes down to — life lessons, changing attitudes and removing barriers … on all fronts.

“I think that we want to have this type of thing mimic what life really should be,” he says. “In that whether you have a disability or you have a physical challenge, you should be accepted into a career, a life, friendships, etc. And I think that’s one of the nice things about the sport — it really allows people to come together and bond as team mates, regardless of their ability or disability.”