Hockey Canada announced Wednesday, September 5, 2012, that Mike Mondin (Trail, BC) has been named head coach of Canada’s National Sledge Team for the 2012-2013 season. It was also announced that Curtis Hunt (Regina, Sask.) will join Mondin behind the bench as assistant coach.
Mondin begins his third season at the helm of Canada’s National Sledge team, guiding the team to a gold medal at the 2011 World Sledge Hockey Challenge last December in Calgary and a bronze medal at the 2012 IPC World Paralympic Championship in Hamar, Norway in March.
Hunt will enter his first season as an assistant coach with Canada’s National Sledge Team, however he is no stranger to international hockey. Hunt has won a pair of gold medals as an assistant coach with Canada’s National Junior Team at the IIHF World Junior Championship in 2007 in Leksand, Sweden, and in 2008 in Pardubice, Czech Republic. Hunt won a silver medal as assistant coach of Canada’s National Men’s Under-18 Team at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games last February in Innsbruck, Austria. Hunt has nine (9) years of head coaching experience in the WHL with Moose Jaw and Regina and in the AHL with Binghamton.
Canada’s National Sledge Team will kick off the 2012-2013 season with a selection camp from September 6-8, 2012 at the East Bayfield Community Centre in Barrie, Ont.
Thirty-one players have been invited and will take part in the camp in Barrie, which will determine the roster that will participate in a camp in Trail, BC, October 20-28, 2012, when the roster will be pared down further.
The roster announced for the selection camp includes three (3) players from BC; forwards Scott Karrasch (Surrey, BC) and Josh MacDonald (Surrey, BC) and defenseman James Gemmell (Quesnel, BC). The camp includes 15 players who won gold at the 2011 World Sledge Hockey Challenge in Calgary, AB last December.
The players will be on the ice a total of five (5) times in three (3) days in Barrie, with a pair of practices and three (3) Red vs. White games. The games are free of admission and open to the public.
Sledge Hockey is the Paralympic version of ice hockey and, since its debut at the 1994 Lillehammer Paralympic Winter Games, it is quickly becoming one of the biggest attractions for spectators at these games. It is face-paced, highly physical and played by male athletes with a physical disability in the lower part of the body.
For more information on Canada’s National Sledge Team, please visit www.HockeyCanada.ca, or follow along via social media at www.twitter.com/hc_sledge.
For more information about BC Hockey, please visit the BC Hockey website at www.bchockey.net or email info@bchockey.net.
