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It’s seven years and counting since Canadians claimed world-beater status in the sport of sledge hockey.

Their aim is to change that over the next eight days with the help of home ice at Calgary’s WinSport Arena.

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“We have to play our absolute best every day,” said Canadian head coach Russ Herrington, on the eve of the 2024 World Para Hockey Championship in the city. “We’re gonna get an A-game from anybody we play. So we have to find ways to have depth in our scoring and get good goaltending. And legitimately, we need to stay healthy, which has been a bit of an issue for us in the last three or four months.

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“But we’re happy with our progression right now,” continued Herrington. “Ultimately, our goal is to try and win a gold medal at the next Paralympics. The biggest stumbling block are the Americans — they are the best team in the world. They’ve continued to show that. They’ve got four or five players in their prime that are among the best ever to play this sport.”

Canada will be joined by Czechia, Italy and Japan in Group B at the WinSport-hosted world championship.

Meanwhile, the dastardly Americans headline Group B, joining China, Korea and Slovakia.

Canada opens its preliminary-round schedule Saturday against Japan (5 p.m.). Then the host country faces Italy on Sunday (5 p.m.), before closing out prelim action against Czechia on Tuesday (5 p.m.).

“We’ve won a bunch of silver medals,” Herrington said. “So we feel like we are legitimately the second best team in the world. And this is a great opportunity to prove that, because Czechia and China have really come on in the last few years and are really going to give us a challenge. Japan and Slovakia are moving up from the B pool and have shown really well. And then you’ve got Italy, who is building to be hosts. And then you’ve got Korea, who since Pyeongchang (and the 2018 Paralympic Winter Olympic Games) has consistently been in the top four or top five.”

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The Canadian roster features 12 players who won a silver medal at the 2023 World Para Hockey Championship, including Calgary’s own Auren Halbert.

“Yeah … it’ll be great to be able to play in front of friends and family that have never been able to see me play live before,” said Halbert, a 21-year-old ever-improving defenceman for Canada. “I think just having that home-ice advantage is huge for us. And having fans in the stands that are cheering for you is a huge help.”

They owned home-ice advantage last year at the worlds in Moose Jaw, Sask.

But it wasn’t enough, as they were forced to settle for their third silver medal in five years.

It was the Americans — again — coming away with gold.

And Halbert and the Canucks would love another shot at them when the championship is on the line Sunday, May 12, in the championship game at WinSport Arena (5:30 p.m.).

“We just have to string together three of the best periods we’ve ever played,” Halbert said. “I think we’re trending in that direction. And I’m really excited to see how we can pull it off this week.

“We’ve been focusing a lot on the brotherhood aspect of our team,” continued Halbert, when asked how they’ve approached this year’s worlds after last year’s heartbreak on home soil. “So really coming together and just trying to gel as a unit — I think that coming out and playing each line and having each line be just as good as the next and just coming wave after wave every single shift — is our big point for this week.”

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All totalled, Canada has captured four gold medals at the World Para Hockey Championship (2000, 2008, 2013, 2017), in addition to four silver (2015, 2019, 2021, 2023) and three bronze (1996, 2009, 2012).

So it’s been a while since they’ve claimed the championship.

“We need to bring our A-game,” Herrington said. “We feel like we’re a team that has to be strong defensively — our offence is going to start from our defensive structure. And then when we have the opportunity we want to use our speed and our physicality to impose our will on our forecheck.”

The journey to the world championship began last September in Calgary, where 30 players were invited to evaluation camp. The competition schedule included the IPH Cup in Ostrava, Czechia, the Para Hockey Cup in Quispamsis, N.B., and two series against the United States in Minot, N.D., and Calgary.

So they’ve come full circle — back to Calgary — in hopes of using WinSport’s familiar surroundings to fulfil their gold-medal dreams.

“I hope so,” added Herrington. “You know … this is a fantastic facility. We run a lot of camps out of here. So we have a terrific setup with our dressing and all the amenities.

“We had such a great environment and an experience of Moose Jaw (last year). We’re hoping that we have the same here in Alberta to expose the best sledge hockey in the world to a new province. So it’s really exciting.

“And we’re hoping that we’re able to feed off that energy that we hope the Canadian fans bring to help us. Our goal is just to represent Canada the best we can. And we’d like to we’d like to put on a show for the home fans, for sure.”

tsaelhof@postmedia.com

http://www.x.com/ToddSaelhofPM

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