Billy Bridges trades sticks for stones

BOUCHERVILLE, Que. – When Billy Bridges tackles a new sport, he means business.

The six-time Paralympian in Para ice hockey returns to the Canadian Wheelchair Curling Championships this week representing a new team. The event, which got underway on Monday, runs until Sunday.

He is skipping Team Manitoba, where his wife – former women’s national hockey team goalie Sami Jo Small – is from.

The couple spend significant time there visiting family and running a summer girls’ hockey school.

“I love Manitoba, it’s like a second home now,” Bridges said.

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A couple of years ago, a neighbour with decades of wheelchair curling experience nudged him towards the local club. What began socially quickly turned competitive.

‘’I quickly became addicted,” Bridges told CPC in an interview last Friday. ‘’This year I played 155 games… and that doesn’t include practices.’’

For an athlete who admits ‘’it’s hard to half-ass anything’’ it isn’t surprising he’s gone from newcomer to national level skip so quickly.

On the curling sheet, Bridges brings a leadership style shaped by years in elite team environments. As a skip he says he emphasizes communication and trust which are principles he carried over from hockey.

‘’You can get so tunnel vision in your own ideas,’’ said Canada’s all time leading scorer with the Para ice hockey national team. ‘’You need a good team behind you and if you’re not a good communicator, they’re never going to tell you.’’

For Bridges, mastering draw weight, building a full range of shots, and reading ice conditions are the steepest learnings in his new sport.

‘’Not everything can be solved with a slapshot,’’ confirmed Bridges, who has also played at the national level in wheelchair tennis and wheelchair basketball and is now a national level thrower in Para athletics.

He realizes that one day going to the Paralympic Games in a new sport is a very ambitious goal. But he won’t have any regrets.

‘’I do know what it takes to get somewhere at the highest level,’’ said the Mississauga, Ont. resident. ‘’I might not have the skill to get there but I’m never going to say I didn’t put in the effort.’’

Bridges was elated with Canada winning the wheelchair curling gold medal at the Paralympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina in March. A veteran squad, Bridges knows most of the players from past Games.

‘’I’ve always been a big fan of that entire team,’’ said Bridges. ‘’Every Paralympics that we’ve been to, we’ve been in the same village as the curlers and I’m good friends with Ina (Forrest), Mark (Ideson), and Collinda (Joseph).

‘’It was just so exciting to see them get over that semifinal hump. They were communicating well and really made China look pretty average, which is a huge credit to that team and what they accomplished.’’

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Just prior to this week’s nationals, Bridges ran into Ideson at a local Bonspiel.

‘’I always try to pick his brain and ask him what I should be working on,’’ Bridges said. ‘’He’s like, well, if you’re playing 200 times a year, then you’re probably working on it.

‘’I would love the opportunity to be able to play with them one day, and I’ve told them that a few times.

‘’That is my goal.’’

Team Manitoba enters the nationals as a newly formed group and Bridges is keeping their objectives simple.

‘’Our goal is just to get better every time,’’ he said. ‘’I’m just happy to have the opportunity to play at the highest level in Canada.’’