The Canadian Paralympic wheelchair rugby team took home a silver medal in London and finished fourth in Rio. Team co-captain Patrice “Pico” Dagenais is the president of Ottawa’s local wheelchair rugby team, the Ottawa Stingers. He says although his teammates are great athletes, there’s something significantly more special about the group of guys he spends a few hours with two nights a week.
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- Patrice “Pico” Dagenais is a two-time paralympian and president of Ottawa’s local wheelchair rugby team, the Ottawa Stingers.
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- The guys say the team is more than a group of guys who get together to play sports; it is a family who support each other through life on and off the court.
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- Ben lives near Kingston, Ont., and makes the nearly two hour drive to Ottawa twice weekly to play with the Stingers. He comes to Ottawa because he loves spending time with the guys and the physical activity helps keeps him healthy.
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- The sport was created in Winnipeg in 1976. It’s a strategic sport, combining elements of handball, basketball and hockey.
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- In order to be eligible to play, athletes need to have a mobility-related disability in at least three limbs. According to the Canadian Wheelchair Sports Association, the majority of athletes have spinal cord injuries that have resulted in full or partial paralysis of the legs and partial paralysis of the arms, but other disability groups who are eligible to play include polio, cerebral palsy, some forms of muscular dystrophy, dysmelia, amputees, and other neurological conditions such as Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
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- Players receive a point classification that measures their functional physical abilities, the scale of which ranges from 0.5 (least function) to 3.5 (most function). In order to ensure fairness, the four players on the court at a time must add up to no more than 8.0 points per team.
Credits
Filmed, edited and produced collaboratively by Amanda van Frankfoort, Brittany van Frankfoort and Scott Wheeler.
Special thanks to the Ottawa Stingers and the Ottawa Rehab Centre for their cooperation.
Music, ‘Acoustic Breeze,’ ‘Better Days,’ and ‘Tenderness’ courtesy of Bensound.