Powassan councillor Roger Glabb gets a stern warning from referee Dan Selin about controlling his hockey sledge as he toppled over repeatedly during the Sunday, Feb. 10 rematch game between the North Bay Ice Breakers and the Powassan Fire Department. Glabb and Selin were at odds during much of the game as old hockey rivalries between the two resurfaced.
POWASSAN – Despite augmenting his team with recruits that included members of the North Bay Sky Hawks, Powassan fire chief Bill Cox couldn’t pull off a win when his firefighters’ team faced off against the North Bay Ice Breakers on Feb. 10.
“I even took myself out of the game, hoping to better the odds, but that didn’t work either,” said Cox, whose team lost three to one against the faster, stronger and better balanced sledge hockey players from The Bay. “Our players just couldn’t seem to keep their hockey sledges from tipping over, nor could they master passing the puck underneath the sledge or get up any speed by propelling themselves forward with the hockey sticks. We gave it our best, but our best just wasn’t good enough.”
The Sunday afternoon game, played at the Sportsplex in Powassan, was a rematch for Cox’s team which lost its first battle with the Ice Breakers in December at a score of 7 to 2. While the firefighters managed to better defend their own net this time round, they had trouble controlling their sledges accurately enough to make the long push to the North Bay goal. Powassan’s lone goal was made by fireman Bart Wagner, but only when North Bay was playing five men short.
Powassan mayor Bob Young, councillor Roger Glabb and members of the Nipissing Volunteer Fire Department were also among the recruits Cox brought on board. While Young managed to maintain his balance with some degree of success, Glabb never got the hang of sitting upright on the sledge, let alone propelling it along the ice.
“I have to admit, I spent most of my ice time on my back with my legs in the air,” Glabb said. He also pointed to an old rivalry with referee Dan Selin, one of the founders of the North Bay Sledge Hockey Association, as being responsible for “some amount of concern over how this game was called.”
Following the final buzzer, Young called the game, “a real experience. It’s a lot of fun, but it sure takes some sense of balance. I think the Ice Breaker players are remarkable, and I’d hate to play against them in a real game in their own league. There’s no doubt, those players are real athletes.”
Sledge hockey dates back to 1967 when a club team was formed in Sweden. In 1982, sledge hockey teams started forming in Canada and in 1990, the first International Rules for sledge hockey were drafted from Canadian hockey rules.
“We play with the same number on the ice as regular hockey,” said Selin, “two defencemen, two forwards, a centre and a goalie.”
Athletes sit on a kind of modified snow sled that has two skate blades underneath and a light metal frame that allows the puck to pass under. Each player has two short sticks with a hockey blade on one end and picks on the other that they use like ski poles to propel themselves forward.
“This is the second time we’ve played in Powassan, and we’ll come back here any time,” Selin said. “The firefighters have been great sports, the community has shown incredible support and our players have had the time of their lives.”
The Feb. 10 rematch raised over $600 in combined donations to help the Ice Breakers finance a trip to New York this summer to compete in an international sledge hockey tournament.
“This is just the start of our tournament fundraising efforts,” said Selin, who estimates the trip will cost in excess of $17,000, “and we can’t thank the Powassan fire department enough for providing us with this opportunity. It’s a great way to kick off our fundraising campaign, and our players didn’t even have to break a sweat.”
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