Men’s Sledge Hockey at Paralympics Vancouver

The Paralympics Winter Games are on in Vancouver and I went to the Men’s Sledge Hockey last night with my family. Sean already had 4 tickets so we needed just 2 more and thought we’d be able to buy them from scalpers outside the Thunderbird Stadium.

Before we left home, Crystal checked Craigslist and found a guy who wanted $65 per ticket. She told him we’d pay $50 each and he agreed to meet us. It turned out the tickets were $10 face value but we took them anyway and at the end of the first period we moved into center ice seats in Row 8 – lol. The best seats in the house!!! We also saw the guy who sold us the tickets there in Row 1 and gave him the thumbs up even though he sold us lousy seats because we made lemonade out of the lemons he sold us!

The game was incredible to watch. I think Sledge Hockey must be even more strenuous and difficult that regular hockey. The guys sit on a one runner sled with a short hockey stick in each hand which they use to move the puck and to move themselves on the ice. Their upper body strength is amazing. Think about moving your seated body from one end of the arena to the other on a sled you are sitting on. How many times could you do that? LOL They run into each other, tip over and I honestly couldn’t understand how they don’t go over backward with all their body weight on the seat (most of them don’t have use of their legs (if they even have legs).

It was an eye-opener for sure. These guys all have disabilities but they are out there working harder than most people with full use of their bodies ever will. There were a couple of run-ins – with one good fist to the face, lots of penalties, furious coaches, and the goal-tenders were wiped out more than once.

The stadium was packed and the Canadian flags, banners, cowbells, horns and crazy costumes were out in full force. I noticed a guy with a moose head hat and it reminded me of seeing one downtown Vancouver during the Olympics. While we were watching the game the cameraman picked him out of the crowd and sure enough it was the same guy. I ran into him in the hot dog line & told him I recognized him and took a picture of him downtown. He laughed and said he’d had over 150 pictures taken since then. Of course I had to have one more!

I’d definitely love to go back to watch the Gold Medal game (with Canada in it for sure .