Canada wins silver, books ticket to Milano Cortina at Para ice hockey world championships

BUFFALO, N.Y. It’s official.

Canada’s Para ice hockey team is headed to the Milano Cortina Paralympic Winter Games after earning the silver medal at the world championships which concluded on Saturday.

The Canadians, the defending champions, went 3-0 in the preliminary round, then beat Czechia 3-0 in the semis before falling to the U.S. 6-1 in the final on Saturday.

Five countries qualified for the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games: Canada, USA, Czechia, China and Germany. The other three entries will be determined at the B Pool world championships this September.

Canadian team captain Tyler McGregor of Forest, Ont., was named the best forward of the tournament. He finished fourth in scoring with 13 points (seven goals and six assists).

Dominic Cozzolino of Mississauga, Ont., was third in scoring (7-8-15) and also second in face-off wins percentage at 65.69.

“Not the performance we wanted today,” said McGregor about the final. “When you look at the bigger picture and look back at the full year and how far we’ve come and how much we’ve grown as a group, there are lots of positives we can find.

‘’For our group we know what we have to do: move forward, use this as fuel, get better every day and prepare to leave Milano-Cortina with a gold medal.”