Calgary’s Auren Halbert leads host Canada in global sled hockey bid

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Auren Halbert embraces the 2024 World Para Hockey Championship on WinSport.

How could I not, given the circumstances?

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The sled hockey defenseman plays at home in Calgary, chasing world gold with his fellow Canadians in front of friends and family.

“It means the whole world,” Halbert, 21, said. “I have been training since I was eight years old to be part of this team. It was definitely difficult to get here. “Every day I wake up and I am very grateful to be where I am and to have the opportunities that I have on the national team.”

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Those opportunities have manifested into a chance this weekend to win world glory with Canada.

Halbert, who was born with a short left leg and had to have it amputated at birth, and his campmates are just two wins away from regaining a title they last held in 2017.

Undefeated in the round robin after wins of 19-0, 10-0 and 5-1 respectively over Japan, Italy and Czechia, Canada (3-0) needs a semifinal victory Friday over China (2-1) in the WinSport Arena (5:30 p.m., HockeyCanada.ca) and then a win in Sunday’s gold medal game, against the Czech Republic (2-1) or the giant United States (3-0), also at WinSport Arena ( 5:30 pm, HockeyCanada. ca) win the championship for the fifth time in 25 years.

And the Canadians are happy to have defender Halbert in that bid for world glory.

“What excites us about Auren is what he’s accomplished so far,” Canada head coach Russ Herrington said. “What Auren brings to the table is that he has explosive speed and excellent puck skills, and he shoots the puck pretty hard for a young guy. A lot of his growth we can attribute to the dedication he shows in on-ice training and how hard he works in the gym, and he’s really starting to pay off on the ice.

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“In the last three months, I would say, his light bulb has gone off,” Herrington continued. “He has discovered how he can impact the game from the back. How can I put my fingerprints in the game? And now we’re starting to see that he can be a Cale Makar type player for us, because he’s on the ice a lot and he’s able to get to pucks that others can’t.”

So far in the world tournament, Halbert’s team has scored four goals and one assist in three games for Canada.

Not bad for a blueliner, especially one who is a forward recently converted to Herrington’s game plan.

“It was a pretty difficult change for me at first,” Halbert admitted of the move to defense two years ago. “I didn’t feel very comfortable in the position I was in and I had to accept it and know that my role in the team now was that of defense and accept it totally. So it’s been a great learning experience for me, but I think playing as a forward has given me the advantage in defense, knowing what the forwards are looking for to get into the zone.”

Actually, as long as he’s in the mix.

Being a part of Team Canada has always been the Calgarian’s goal since discovering the game at a young age.

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“I kind of adapted to what I had,” Halbert said. “I used to play a lot of football when I was a kid. I played a little bit of street hockey here and there, and then, I think it was when I was eight, I discovered sled hockey and fell in love with it.

“I think my parents saw it on the news one day and said, ‘We have to try this.’ And they told me about it and I had no idea what it was like. I had no idea what to expect. And as soon as I was on the ice, I was all smiles, super excited.

“It was just about being able to be competitive and be around people who are in similar situations to me. “It gives me an outlet to really compete and be the best version of myself.”

That version includes being one of the fastest on the ice, among many other traits.

Herrington, for example, loves his strength on defense: “He can be on the ice and still be the first to back up and out-strength the puck,” the coach said.

And Halbert considers himself brave, perfect for a high-contact sport that he loves to play and in which he tries “not to let anyone cross the blue line.”

“That’s my main goal,” Halbert said. “But since I got on the sled, I’ve always been pretty fast. But I think playing for so long and training with the people I have the opportunity to train with has made my game a lot better. I have a strength coach, Bryan Yu, who I’m here with three days a week at WinSport. We train as hard as we can and I think that has made the difference for me.

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“You’ll find that the game-changer in this sport is being ambidextrous,” continued Halbert, who rented a storage locker and put synthetic ice in it so he could improve his stickhandling skills before the last Games. Olympics. “You have to be able to pass and shoot with your left and right hand, so I realized that my left hand was a big weakness for me. So I worked on it as much as I could. And that’s been huge for my game.

“I think what opened my eyes was being excluded from the Beijing Paralympic Games,” Halbert added. “It just gave me a moment to reset and say, ‘Oh, I need to work a lot harder to make myself visible on this team.’ So all summer I just worked out. I got on the ice as much as I could. Just showing the improvements now is pretty amazing to me.”

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