Ottawa sledge hockey player Tyrone Henry closes in on Paralympic goal
Henry will learn next month if he's one of 17 players heading to South Korea
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- On Feb. 11, Henry was officially named to the team.
Even before he lost the use of his legs in a car crash, Ottawa's Tyrone Henry was intrigued by sledge hockey.
Eight years after that crash, he's one of 20 players vying to suit up for Canada's sledge team at this year's Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
"I was immediately hooked from the get go," Henry said Saturday in an interview with CBC Radio's In Town and Out. "I wasn't sure if I could take part in it because I wasn't disabled at the time."
A huge hockey fan, Henry first started watching the sport during the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic games.
Only a few months later, he was involved in a collision that left him with limited mobility.
"I thought right away, 'Hey, I'm going to take up this sport, and I'm going to try and make that team that I saw just a few months ago,'" Henry said.
Henry's now very close to achieving that goal.
He won gold with Team Canada at the 2017 World Para Ice Hockey Championships. The Paralympics' rules will allow 17 of the 20 players who were on that team to play for Canada in Pyeongchang.
The team will be narrowed down in early February, one month before the Paralympics kick off.
"Being close to realizing that goal is a great feeling," Henry said.
A different form of hockey
Henry's father, Andrew, followed his son's lead and got involved with the sport after the 2010 crash.
"He dragged me into it," he told In Town and Out. "As a father, you do what you can to help facilitate and make sure your kids are successful in whatever they desire."
He now promotes the sport as a director with Women's Sledge Hockey of Canada.
"We actually like to promote it as just another form of hockey," Andrew Henry said. "You're just sitting down in a bucket."
Having played both traditional and sledge hockey, Tyrone Henry said his father's assessment of the sport is spot on.
"When you watch it in the stands or on TV, you don't see the speed of how the play is progressing," he said.
"The puck is still coming at you pretty quick. It's still contact hockey. We're still trying to hit each other and we're still trying to score goals."
The physicality of sledge hockey, Henry said, also compares to its stand-up counterpart.
"You don't want to get caught with your head down."
Henry will now be taking part in a couple of exhibition games against the United States in the coming weeks. After those games, the 17 players heading to Pyeongchang will be chosen.
