The World is on Notice:The Women of Winter are Coming
World Para Ice Hockey has set a goal of hosting the first women's Para ice hockey World Championship in Fall 2021 with hopes of building towards inclusion of women's Para ice hockey in the Paralympic Games
Photo Credit: Connor Mah
The Women’s Canadian Para Ice Hockey (formerly sledge hockey)Team began in 2006 with a group of passionate volunteers deciding that women with physical impairments should also have a chance to represent their country. Fourteen years later, World Para Ice Hockey (WPIH), the international governing body of Para ice hockey, has put the world on notice: Women’s Para Ice Hockey is on the schedule for the 2021/2022 season. On January 29, 2020 WPIH released an update to state that, “WPIH is setting a target to conduct their inaugural Women’s World Championship in October 2021.”
For those that have been around the women’s game over the past decade that last statement may cause some confusion. Has the women’s game not had International Paralympic Committee (IPC) events before? In 2014, the world came to Brampton, Ontario, Canada to take part in the Women’s World Cup and was followed up in 2018 with another World Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic. When it comes to Paralympic sport terminology is very important. The World Cups (2014 and 2018) did not operate under the WPIH rules and regulations such as having athlete classification or equipment checks take place.
World Championships, on the other hand, such as that proposed for October 2021 are critical steps in the pathway to getting a sport accepted into the Paralympic Games. As according to the IPC Handbook (Section 4.3.2.) the “[i]nclusion of new medal events on the Paralympic medal events programme: A new medal event must have been a medal event in at least one World Championship of a Paralympic sport, in order to be considered for inclusion.”
A world championship being the key words. In order to have an opportunity for the women’s game to be a part of the 2026 Paralympic Games programme at least one world championship must occur before the IPC’s Governing board’s decision on medal events. This typically occurs at least 3 years prior to the upcoming Paralympic Games.
So what now?
A four-team (at least) World Championship needs to take place in the Fall 2021. Team Canada and Team USA who started their programs in 2006 are ready and waiting. Who else? Norway has been developing their women’s team especially in the last 2 seasons and has been a host nation of women’s events in the past. The other frontrunner for a spot at the table is Great Britain who just came underneath the umbrella of Great Britain Para Ice Hockey. This was welcomed news proving to the world that there is room for women under National Federations.
Russia has a budding group of young female Para ice hockey players as part of the youth teams in the country. And as always, no one can count a Paralympic powerhouse like China out of the equation who has a lot of action coming its way with the next Paralympic Games in its country. Women are also playing in Australia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The world is building momentum and now thanks to WPIH it has a big goal to shoot for. Watch out world…the women of winter are coming.
For more information please contact info@wphcanada.com
