Sledge hockey

Not to be confused with inline sledge hockey.

Para ice hockey

A player handling the puck
Highest governing body	World Para Ice Hockey International Paralympic Committee
Nicknames	Sled hockey, sledge hockey
First played	1960s (1960s), Stockholm, Sweden first international rules: 1990 (1990)
Characteristics
Contact	Contact sport
Team members	2 Forwards 2 Defenders 1 Centre 1 Goaltender
Type	Parasport, winter team sport
Equipment	ice hockey sledge carbon fiber sledge hockey sticks helmet with facemask, shoulder pads, elbow pads, shin guards, ice hockey gloves pants and footwear based on player's comfort and need goalies: standard mask, chest and arm protector, blocker pad and catching glove, leg pad if they wish, stick with teeth on the paddle and the knob of the stick goalies may make modifications to their equipment
Venue	Ice hockey rink
Presence
Olympic	No
Paralympic	Yes

Sledge hockey (or Sled hockey in American English), also known as Para ice hockey, is an adaptation of ice hockey designed for players who have a physical disability.

The sport was invented in the early 1960s at a rehabilitation centre in Stockholm, Sweden, and played under similar rules to standard ice hockey. Players are seated on sleds and use special hockey sticks with metal "teeth" on the tips of their handles to navigate the ice. Playing venues use an ice hockey rink.

Via its division World Para Ice Hockey, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) acts as the international sanctioning body for the sport. Para ice hockey has been played in the Winter Paralympics since 1994, and has been one of the most popular events.

History

Canadian men's and U.S. men's players competing at the 2015 World Sled Hockey Challenge.

Two men from Sweden designed the sledge in the 1960s because they wanted to continue to play hockey despite their physical disabilities. Their design included two skate blades on a metal frame that allowed the puck to pass underneath. They completed the ensemble by including two round poles with bike handles for sticks. Although there are many restrictions to the measurements and weight of the sleds used in the Paralympic Games, the basic design of modern sleds remains true to the original 1960s simple sleds for kids. These sleds were then made to be used for hockey.

Despite the initial lack of interest and awareness in the few years that followed, competition between sledge hockey teams started up in 1971 that included five teams in Europe. In 1981, Great Britain established their first sledge hockey team, and that was shortly followed by Canada in 1982. It was not until 1990 that the United States developed their first ice sledge hockey team. Sled hockey continued to expand when Estonia and Japan developed their teams in 1993. Sledge hockey was introduced to the Winter Paralympics in 1994, with Sweden claiming the first gold medal. Since 2010, sledge hockey has been a mixed-gender event.

On November 30, 2016, as part of an effort to improve and unify the marketing of its self-sanctioned sports outside of the Paralympic Games, and citing that the word "sledge" had differing meanings between languages, the International Paralympic Committee announced that it would henceforth refer to sledge hockey as Para ice hockey (with its sanctioning sub-division consequently renamed World Para Ice Hockey).

Women's para ice hockey

Para ice hockey has become one of the most popular events in the Winter Paralympics since its introduction in the 1994 Winter Paralympics program. The leading nations in women's para ice hockey are Canada and the United States whose members also work as promoters, developers, and ambassadors of the women's game internationally. Both countries have developed national women's teams, the Canadian women's national para ice hockey team, and the United States women's national para ice hockey team.

Growth

Women's para ice hockey has faced several challenges when it comes to growing the women's game. Few women have had the opportunity to compete at the elite levels of the sport, at both the Winter Paralympics and the World Para Ice Hockey Championships.

At the Paralympic level, only three female athletes have participated in the games since 1994, all of whom played on men's teams because a para ice hockey tournament dedicated exclusively to female athletes does not exist. For high performance female athletes in this sport, going to the top means attempting to make their nation's men's national team. While the inclusion of women on men's teams has been considered an important step forward for the sport, criticism has been raised regarding the slow development of the women's para ice hockey game itself as well as a lack of support and a scarce amount of concentrated efforts to raise the public profile of the women's game.

Women in the Paralympics

Para ice hockey allowed women to compete on men's teams when it debuted at the 1994 Paralympics with the only woman, Britt Mjaasund Oyen of Norway, competing. Oyen was on a team which consisted entirely of male athletes. The sport then switched to being open only to men somewhere in the late 1990s to early 2000s. It wasn't until the 2018 Paralympics that Norway’s Lena Schroeder, became the second woman to compete at the Paralympics on an entirely male team. The third woman in history to compete was Yu Jing of China, who competed in the 2022 Paralympics on a male team, but Jing barely saw time on the ice and only competed in one of the six games Team China played.

The Paralympics almost saw a fourth woman competing in para ice hockey, but this failed to occur. During the 2006 Paralympics in Torino, Amanda Ahrnbom, a para ice hockey player from Sweden, was ruled ineligible to compete by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) for being a woman instead of a man after she had already arrived at the Games. Her rejection stemmed from the discovery that she wasn't a male athlete during the team processing procedure. While she was allowed to compete in a pre-Paralympic game between the U.S. and Sweden, she was forced to remain on bench during the actual tournament.

For the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, para ice hockey officially became a mixed event allowing women to compete with and against men due to a new provision made by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), changing the tournament's designation from men's to a mixed. Due to numerous requests from nations who were practicing the sport, the IPC's governing board gave its approval of the entry provision which allowed qualified teams to add female players to their roster by choice. Teams were allowed to have a roster of up to sixteen athletes if at least one player was female. As of 2022, men's-only teams are allowed to send seventeen players, but can send eighteen players if a woman is included.

That rule, in theory, was attempting to be more inclusive towards women. In reality, it’s actually really inhibited the development of women’s para ice hockey because the argument has always been, 'Well, there is a place for them. They just haven’t broken (onto) the roster yet.' And in a full-contact sport, that’s a lot to ask...

— Peggy Assinck, member of the Canadian women's national para ice hockey team since it formed in 2007

Equipment

Shayba Arena in its para ice hockey configuration at the 2014 Winter Paralympics: the entrance to the players' benches and penalty boxes are flush with the ice surface, to make it easier for players to enter them. The floors are coated in ice or smooth plastic to prevent damage to the sledges.

The sticks have a blade curved at one end in a manner similar to regular ice hockey, and generally six to eight metal teeth at the opposite end of the blade for maneuvering and propulsion. Movement is achieved by using the metal teeth as a means to grip the ice and push oneself forward. The metal teeth cannot be too pointy nor protrude farther than 1 cm beyond the stick, to prevent damage to the ice or injury of other players. Other equipment includes a helmet with facemask, shoulder and elbow pads, shin guards, and hockey gloves. Pants and footwear are at the discretion of both the player's comfort and need. Goaltenders wear the standard mask, chest and arm protector, blocker pad and catching glove, plus a leg pad if they so desire and a stick with teeth on both the paddle as well as the knob of the stick. Additionally, goalies may make modifications to their equipment: a common mod is to attach the plastic outsoles of track spikes onto the outer part of their gloves to aid in lateral mobility.

Carbon fiber sledge hockey sticks

Rules

Essentially all of the standard rules of ice hockey apply to sledge hockey. The differences are those necessitated by the ice sled and the athlete. The first set of international rules was created in 1990 and were drafted from Canadian rules. The only penalty unique to sledge hockey is Teeing—the act of charging an opponent using any part of the front radius of the sled. Players with limited mobility in their arms are permitted the use of a non-disabled assistant. Pushers must wear a team jersey and safety equipment, and cannot exceed the speed of the average player on the ice nor can they enter the "house" (the area extending from the goal crease to the end-zone faceoff dots, extended to the top of the faceoff circles) while in the defensive zone.

Games are divided into three 15-minute periods. If there is a tie at the end of regulation time, it is followed by overtime, and if still tied after the overtime period, a shootout occurs to determine the winning team.

See also

• Para ice hockey at the Winter Paralympics
• World Para Ice Hockey Championships
• World Sledge Hockey Challenge
• IPC Ice Sledge Hockey European Championships
• British Sledge Hockey Association, the governing body for the sport in the U.K.
• USA Warriors, a Para ice hockey team consisting of combat-wounded U.S. soldiers
• Power hockey, electric wheelchair hockey
• Ice sledge racing, a sport that uses the same sticks and sledges for racing instead of hockey

References

• Canadian National Men's Sledge Hockey Team. (2004). Canadian success in sledge hockey. Retrieved January 27, 2006, from [1]
• Canadian Paralympic Committee. (2006). Torino 2006. Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [2]
• Hockey Alberta. (2004). Sledge hockey tournaments. Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [3]
• International Paralympic Committee. (2006). Ice sledge hockey. Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [4]
• International Paralympic Ice Hockey Rulebook. (2005). International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved January 17, 2006, from [5]
• International Wheelchair Basketball Federation. (2003). Promoting excellence and developing opportunities. Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [6]
• It's The Real Deal. (2005). Paralympic schools program. Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [7]
• Paralympic Sports Association. (2004). Sledge hockey. Retrieved January 17, 2006, from [8]
• Salt Lake 2002 Paralympics. (2002). Historical records. Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [9]
• Spokes n’ Motion (2006). Retrieved January 16, 2006, from [10]
• CanWin Sports(2006). Retrieved November 20, 2006, from [11]
• Paralympics GB (2009). Retrieved December 23, 2009, from [12]
• http://usawarriorshockey.org/?p=432
• http://video.capitals.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=186113

External links

• World Para Ice Hockey