Canada set to face aggressive Chinese team in Para hockey semifinal

MILAN – Canada showed its Para ice hockey dominance with a 3-0 record in the preliminary round, but the real test is about to start. 

The Canadians face China, the second seed from Group A, in the semifinals on Friday, where the winner will move onto the final and be guaranteed a medal at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. 

The first two games of Canada’s tournament were easy wins. The Red-and-White blanked both Latvia and Japan. The first real adversity came in Tuesday’s game against Czechia when Canada conceded its first goal and saw its first scoreless period. However, strong attacks on the power play and solid defence remedied the slow start and Canada pulled off a dominant 4-1 victory.

“Leading into the semifinals, we’d much rather have that type of game, where we had to have some adversity and we learned about discipline and staying focused and now again we’ll be ready for that game onFriday versus China,” head coach Boris Rybalka said after the last round-robin contest. 

Rybalka believes Tuesday’s game helped prepare the team emotionally for the medal round of the tournament. 

“They’re going to know on Friday to just gear back, stay calm, and stay focused on the ice.” 

China has had an impressive tournament so far, with just one loss which came at the hands of the world ranked No. 1 Americans. 

Across three games, the Chinese have scored 24 goals while Canada has netted 26. China has the third best goal differential in the tournament at plus-16; Canada’s is plus-25. 

China boasts an aggressive style of play that has helped it advance to the medal round, but that also means it leads the tournament in penalties with 28 minutes across three games in the last week of play. 

“We know they’re going to be fast, they’re going to try to be physical against us, even we watched them against the Americans, they’re very physical but they take a lot of penalties. We know they’re going to do that, so with us we want to use our physical play to get the puck deep on them and lots of shots,” Rybalka said. 

Canada has been very successful on the power play over its first three games. The Canadians are tied with the U.S. for the most power-play goals with six. 

“I think one area we want to expose is their goaltending and their D-zone so that’s something we want to go after, and the way you do that is obviously forechecking hard,” Rybalka said.

Canada struggled with defensive communication during its game against Czechia. There were moments when the pairs became disoriented and unaware of who should pinch and who should stay back. The team will be working on coordinating on defence during the three day break before playoffs.

Canada will see if that preparation is enough when they take on the Chinese squad in the first game of the medal round on Friday at 2:05 p.m. ET.