📅 Published on: 2024-12-21 23:00:14
⏱ Duration: 00:22:17 (1337 seconds)
👀 Views: 1215 | 👍 Likes: 57
📝 Video Description:
Today, the only way for a woman to play para Ice hockey at the paralympic Games is to crack the ‘mixed-gender’ roster. Women’s Para Hockey Canada is leading the charge to change that reality—with the ultimate goal of seeing the inclusion of a women’s Para hockey event at the Paralympics.
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🎙 Channel: NHL
🌍 Channel Country: United States
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NHL,Hockey,ice hockey,ice hockey highlights,nhl highlights,hockey game,hockey games 2024,ice hockey highlights 2024,nhl hockey games 2024,nhl highlights today 2024,national hockey league,breaking down barriers,para hockey,womens para hoc key,parahockey,paralympics,olympics,sled hockey
🕵️♂️ Transcript:
so our ultimate goal here is to make it into the paralympic games we really really have big hopes for 2030 in the the pathway we’ve created so far just think that being able to stand on top of the world basically and feel like we made it will be such a cool moment growing up in the sport and watching all the guys that I grew up with get to go to the paral Olympics and win gold and live out their dreams when that finally becomes real for us I think it’s going to be incredibly overwhelming they train every single day they come out here and they’re fierce they’re proud they’re United getting the score to the paralympic stage yeah it means everything to so many people I would say the harder you work the like more results you get really anything’s possible if you put your mind to it they’re never going to be told I’m sorry you’re a female you can’t play they’re going to be able to go out there they’re going to be treated exactly like the men and they’re going to go out there and keep [Music] by it’s time for a new era in sport one that honors the brave I stepped on the ice and became the first slack player to play in the National Hockey League comes up over the M police line the Bold when he did decide to come out and make it public I think I could speak for all of us we were just so proud of them Herb started the first hockey school that included all kids the people that look different let’s go this is a series about individuals and organizations who are determined to redefine hockey culture and to inspire a new and diverse generation of hockey fans that’s what this L NHL does it brings us together we’ve been talking about this day for years and so the fact that we’re here it’s pretty Monumental the past present and future women’s hockey meet right here my name is s tinker and this is breaking down barriers you must had to juggle a lot give us a sense of the time that you put into the training okay do you want to go first sure uh so I try to get into the gym at at least two to three times a week so I’m there usually Monday Wednesday Fridays and then trying to skate again two to three times a week there’s some ice times during the day um throughout the week that I try to go to on the Men’s National Team and then there’s a club here in Calgary that I try to go train with in the evenings during the week so training about 8 to 10 hours a week cardio um like about 6 hours a week and then in the gym two to three times a week as well [Music] can’t go anywhere without my [Applause] alleny [Applause] hey okay good how are you oh we’re doing band stuff oh typically I would say externals like four or five nice there you go you got this there you go good job don’t worry about your elbows as much pack the shoulder blades back so when I was 6 months old I was diagnosed with neuroblastoma so it’s a form of cancer it was along my spinal cord so it left me with spinal cord damage so I use a wheelchair or I can also use some canes to walk nice looking strong atanta I started playing when I was 9 years old and ever since then just been playing so I made the Women’s National Team at 14 years old and then started playing with the men’s provincial team when I was about 15 and been named the captain at 22 and still trucking along and loving it nice one atanta nice that was actually fun today the only way for a woman to play parah ice hockey at the par Olympic Games is to crack her nation’s mixed roster par ice hockey was added to the par Olympic winner games in 1994 and while it is technically a mixed gender sport only three female players have ever competed in the history of the event Women’s parah Hockey Canada is leading the charge to change that reality with the ultimate goal of seeing being the inclusion of a Women’s parah Hockey event at the Paro Olympics so our ultimate goal here is to make it into the paralympic games 2030 is the year that we’re really shooting for hopefully it happens just the visibility of it all just knowing that this team exists and this is something that they can strive to be on and at whatever age they are there is a women’s national team that exists is your like you don’t have like a KNE thingy on that one I guess not no my bucket goes over it yeah also these are everyone kind of has their story but once we’re out on the ice like we’re all equals and individuals but also everybody kind of understands some of the things that you’re going through that the able-bodied person or a normal person wouldn’t it’s been just a really big sense of community and kind of just giving you the confidence away from the rink as well as at the rink knowing that this is something I excel [Applause] at and this is something I can come here and I can be my best self and just take that with me throughout all parts of my life whether it be like with my family Friends School relationships it just has helped me really grow as a person be [Applause] [Music] confident all right uh today we’ll start with doing some skating and passing drills down in the corner we can start with some figure eights and then maybe get into like a waterfall or a horseshoe and then get into some shooting drills after that maybe we’ll do some breakouts and attacking just to work on those things and those systems over the past couple years we’ve had a mentorship program with the Women’s National Team so across Canada in conjunction with some of our training camps we’ve had mentorship ice times so that’s when we invite out girls and women in the community whether they’ve been been playing for x amount of years or brand new or just want to try it for the first time we invite them out to ice times and me and some other teammates on the Women’s National Team we come out and we coach and we Mentor these ice [Applause] times we are trying to make it to the highest point of our sport so just knowing that this team is out there and it exists for them as something to work towards is pretty cool let’s go Canada three 1 2 the first time I hit the ice I honestly fell in love like I can’t forget that feeling of depending on just my upper body and just my arms to like move my body in space was so freeing cuz like growing up with a disability and a prosthetic leg like running around and like recess and gym at school stuff like that wasn’t accessible and not fun so yeah it was a pretty amazing experience to just feel so free on the [Music] ice so even from where I began at 14 to see where the team has gone from there has been really crazy but I think throughout my 10 years on the team fighting the battles of no funding and not having recognition and having to just try to push all those barriers down to get to where we are now which we still have a long ways to go to our ultimate goal for the paral Olympics you guys are allowed to look at the GoPro if you want okay bye that’s on camera I think to me the sport means just um it’s given me an identity almost so I see myself as an athlete first and foremost a hockey player our Women’s National Team we are unpaid athletes we’re all here just playing the sport cuz we love it we’ve established women World challenges Under World pair ice hockey for the past 2 years and there’s another one happening this year and then 2025 is a major stepping stone for our sport so that will be the first world championship officially so once that step has happened then that really builds us into 2030 game d okay this is what we’ve been waiting for all week long time before that this is a moment that you all get excited to actually finally bring it all together you’ve been working extremely hard we’ve been working on um a lot of important details that it’s going to be fun to actually get out there and put it out on the line and see what we’re made of they train every single day uh they come out here and they’re fierce they’re proud they’re United they’re at the top of the world getting the sport to the par Olympic stage means everything to so many people to have equality in sport and and having women at the top stage not only is it showing how talented these women are U but it just helps the Next Generation getting ready and getting excited and the world needs to see how good they are all right what are we United who are we playing for Terra it’s been super exciting to be able to have the Women’s National Team here together and starting to think about preparing for this season preparing for this three- game series again the USA Women’s program um and it’s just really exciting to be able to be here have everybody in one place and really focusing on the things that we can control that rivalry between US and Canada is really intense it’s you know just being a hockey player it doesn’t matter if you’re sled hockey player Able Body standup player uh it is something that you grow up just wanting to be a part of and looking forward to one of the things that I really look forward to to is just being with my teammates we don’t get a lot of camps throughout the year so just being with my teammates the camaraderie coming out here playing Another Country when you are on the ice you know we’re Rivals we’re we’re banging into each other we’re trying to score goals but when we’re off the ice it’s it’s different we’re trying to grow the game for each other um we are in similar obviously similar situations and where we want to go um and that comes with a lot of working together and coordinating with other countries and stuff so at the end of the day our goal is to get to the par Olympics our athletes have trained to go to the par Olympics and it is something that they have their hearts into right now they are dedicated and I think it’s just it’s the next step to really showcase these women at the par Olympics they are so talented right now and I’m hoping it’s just changing as we’re speaking uh but right now Canada and USA have very developed programs they’ve been playing games against each other since 2007 which is great and there are other countries that are developing programs so I think for women’s Parise hockey I’ve been on the Women’s National Team for many many years now um and really the goal is to be able to have women’s par ice hockey be at the par Olympic game still there still there still there still there I knew people on Canada I knew Peggy I knew other girls so we all got together and we were like let’s make teams let’s make national teams there’s no better time than the present than to go out and make these teams 15 years later look at us now like we have Canada we have USA there’s a huge rivalry it’s a great time now do we need a ton more funding to do this stuff do we need more countries to get involved absolutely but that’s where you know us getting together us having meetings with everyone in the world and just trying to push this sport on the women’s side [Applause] I was born with congenital femoral deficiency and it impacted the growth and development of both of my hips and legs so on my left side I was born with a shortened femur and like basically no kneecap and then on my right side I had no femur at all I had tibia and foot and when I was 16 I had that foot amputated and yeah so I I’m like a below the knee amp but yeah there was never really a knee there to begin with after Decades of competing in parah hockey Christina pikon made her par Olympic debut at the 2022 games in Beijing in Paran Nordic skiing I’ve always been really driven and I’ve always wanted wanted to get the best out of myself and really prove got this thing about proving people wrong growing up with a disability it was really hard for me to experience winter in like a positive way so skis were and and a sitsky and using my arms to get around in the snow was so freeing again it was like that feeling that I felt when I was 10 years old again like it hooked me like oh man I’ve never been able to experience nature like this and go out on mountain boards and go on hiking trails and just be out and uh experience that so that was kind of the hook for me with Nordic she’s undertaking something really hard and it’s amazing to see her dedication to it and to watch how she’s trying to learn all this stuff and and she’s learning quickly this is a really hard sport tenacious and hardworking um that was the one thing I noticed straight away when we met Chris was just doing her own transition from Paradise hockey to sitsky so I saw a lot of her and me when she started training and you know just that fun that she had doing everything just how much fun I had doing it too you kind of Thrive off that and that uh that energy and it lifts everyone up there’s just such a such a big presentence she has that she brings to the whole team when she’s around I’m really grateful to Nordic that through that Sport and through this team I achieved that big dream of going to the par Olympic Games and I got to experience being in Beijing and competing and but it was a Bittersweet feeling because the dream was that I’d be there for hockey with all those women and so it was really like emotional and sad but like definitely lights that fire I got a second place like in the overall season um so that was kind of neat for like all the female sit skars I came in second I took three years off of hockey and um I’m I’m back into it the plan is that I can support and mentor and be on the ice with the women and help grow the game again while also training and focusing on Nordic skiing but the strides that they’ve been making with the Women’s World challenges and some of the internationally IPC sanctioned events are like on the checklist so like we’re checking those things off to be considered like a sport for 2030 and I think that that’s still a feasible a feasible goal for the sport internationally and I know our team will be ready cuz we’ve been ready for a decade working with Emmy just brings so much joy to my heart because I remember being her age and being new to sport like I can remember how big of an impact this community and Paris sport had on me at that age and it just helped develop my confidence in so many different ways hi Emmy thanks for coming we’re excited to have you we met really briefly on the weekend but I’m Christina yeah I heard you broke your stick on the tournament so I taped these ones up fresh for you to use tonight if you want thank you so of course definitely I didn’t have any female role models to look up to so I just think that it’s super cool that there’s there’s so much more women involved in the sport and there’s more people for her to see just doing great things and she can be like I can do that one day or I can take it a step further I don’t know that’s just so exciting for her I think no I taped them up fresh for you oh thank you yeah definitely absolutely thank you so much you’re welcome I hope they give you a really hard shot and really accurate past I’m not a huge hockey person but I fell in love with this are both kind of cool you got everybody’s signatures you can do the back oh I love it okay thank you you’re so welcome thank you yeah no problem that’s really cool I just love the fastpaced like I’m all one for the hitting I’m the one in the Box most often after the first day she’s like I found my people mom and this was her first adaptive sport that she played and she was just was like these are my people this these people are the same as me and I was like as a mom I was like you know my eyes wed up and my heart burst and I thought I think I found a place for her and she just has bloomed from being accepted but also feeling like there’s other people just like her out there I’m Christina I’ve been playing Cara hockey for 17 years and I’m pretty stoked to help Mentor you guys today this is going to be fun all right girls thanks for coming out tonight I’m really happy that you’re all here um I’m excited to do this ice time work through some skills and get to know you a bit better and I think at the end of this we’ll come out with some new things to take home this was the first par sport that I’ve ever played the one I love the most because you get together and there people that are like the same as you I from the very bottom up want to be able to tell a six-year-old girl who comes out and tries Parise hockey for the first time that if you decide to work hard at this and this is something that you want there’s ‘s potential that you could represent your country at the par Olympic Games I want to get into F Olympics but it’s women’s par hockey is not an Olympic sport why aren’t the women treated the same and Em’s asked me that lots of times women should have their own team and and and I say well that’s what they’re trying to do honey that’s what they’re doing for you and you will be there you know 10 years 15 years from now um when there are women’s teams in the par Olympics and and you’ll get the benefit of that anything’s possible if you put your mind to it really I would say the harder you work the like more results you get they don’t ever have to go through what I went through they’re never going to be told I’m sorry you’re a female you can’t play they’re going to be treated exactly like the men and they’re going to go out there and kick butt I think it’ll be honestly a huge sigh of relief just to finally be able to say that I made it and that everything that I’ve done up until that point it’s been so worth it I know that I will continue to bring girl and women with me and building and growing the game until we make it being able to stand on top of the world basically and feel like we made it and look back to where we’ve come will be such a cool moment
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