Coming up in April: Canada heads to Para ice hockey worlds in busy Para sport month

OTTAWA – April will be a busy month for Canadian Para sport, as Canada’s first athletes will be officially nominated to the 2019 Parapan Am Games team following the Canadian Swimming Trials while the Para ice hockey season wraps up with the world championships.

Here are some of the events to follow this month:

April 3-7: Para swimming, Canadian Swimming Trials, Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre

The integrated Canadian Swimming Trials are set for this Wednesday to Sunday at the venue built for the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games. Multiple world and Paralympic Games champion Aurélie Rivard headlines the Para swimming events. Others to watch include Tess Routliffe, Katarina Roxon, Nicolas-Guy Turbide and Jonathan Dieleman. 
The competition is the selection event to nominate Canada’s Para teams for the World Para Swimming Championships later this year and the Parapan American Games set for August 23 to September 1 in Lima, Peru. Preliminaries start at 9:30 a.m. each day with finals at 6 p.m.

For more information: www.swimming.ca 

April 27 – May 4: Para ice hockey, world championships, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Canada will be looking to successfully defend its world title from 2017 and seek revenge after losing the gold medal game to USA at the Paralympic Winter Games last year. Canada will be led by many returnees from PyeongChang, including forward Tyler McGregor, defenceman Liam Hickey, and goaltender Dominic Larocque. 

The tournament format is different this year with the top four teams in the same pool. Canada, USA, South Korea and Norway are in pool A. The top two finishers in the pool advance directly to the semifinals. The other two nations will face the top two teams in pool B in the quarters. Canada opens April 27 against the Americans, while the championship final is May 4. Canada’s games will be streamed live on the Canadian Paralympic Committee’s Facebook Page.

For more information: https://www.paralympic.org/ostrava-2019

April 28: Wheelchair racing, world marathon championships, London

The London Marathon will be the first opportunity for athletes to earn slots for their National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) for Tokyo 2020. The top four-ranked athletes in each medal event obtain one slot for their respective nation. 
The Canadian entries are all strong marathoners: Brent Lakatos, who won the Berlin Marathon champion last fall; Josh Cassidy, who triumphed at the L.A. Marathon last weekend and is the last Canadian to win the London Marathon in 2010; Commonwealth Games champion Alexandre Dupont; and Trystan Smith, runner-up to Cassidy in L.A.

Just before the worlds, Cassidy and Smith will also race at the Boston Marathon on April 15.

For more information: https://www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/en-gb/

April 30 – May 4, 2019: Boccia, World Open, Montreal

As part of the annual Défi sportif AlterGo, some of the world’s top boccia players will gather for the Boccia World Open at the Maurice-Richard Arena. The Canadian team features Alison Levine of Montreal who was fourth in singles at the world championships in Liverpool, England last year. The Défi sportif AlterGo is annual multi-sport event for people with disabilities in its 36th year. Other international events include a Para ice hockey series between the Canadian and American development teams and two C1 Para cycling events sanctioned by the International Cycling Union.

For more information: https://evenement.defisportif.com/en/international-sports/