Para Worlds Preview: Canada vs. Czechia

Growing up, Raphaëlle Tousignant was a really athletic child. Although she confronted
adversity alongside her path to the place she is in the present day, she has made historical past because the
first girl to play for Canada’s National Para Hockey Team at a serious
worldwide occasion.

She received concerned with as many sports activities as she might as a toddler, however she discovered
her ardour at eight years previous with ringette.

“It was my sport,” Tousignant says. “I actually loved taking part in it. I used to be
dwelling for it.”

During a ringette recreation, Tousignant fell on her proper hip and a bump started to
type, however neither she nor her household thought it will have long-term
results.

“It was very painful,” she explains. “The solely time it was not painful was
after I was transferring, in order that made me much more athletic as a result of I didn’t have
ache after I was operating or taking part in sports activities.”

The ache and bump persevered, so Tousignant visited her household physician. That’s
when it grew to become clear that one thing was not regular. After extra testing at
the Montreal Children’s Hospital, Tousignant was recognized with
osteosarcoma, a bone most cancers discovered generally in youngsters.

She started intensive chemotherapy, however when that was unsuccessful at
shrinking the tumour, Tousignant was confronted with a 12-hour surgical procedure to take away
her proper leg, hip and a part of her pelvis.

A month earlier than her amputation, the then-10-year-old was itching to get again
on the ice for what she thought was the final time.

“In my head, I couldn’t do every other sport after my amputation, I wouldn’t
have the ability to return on the ice,” she explains. “So, I requested if it was
attainable for me to return on the ice one final time so I can get pleasure from it and
then transfer on.”

Surrounded by her teammates and household, Tousignant was capable of play ringette
one final time earlier than her surgical procedure on Oct. 17, 2012. A 12 months after her
amputation, as she adjusted to her new actuality, her father started exploring
new sports activities his daughter might take part in, ideally one thing that would
get her again on the ice.

Raphaëlle Tousignant throughout a World Para Hockey Championship exhibition recreation in Moose Jaw, Sask.

That’s when she discovered about para hockey. Once she was bodily able to
attempt the game, Tousignant went to the rink along with her physiotherapist and her
dad to offer para hockey a attempt.

“I simply fell in love with it. The feeling to be again on the ice, and it was
fairly much like ringette,” she says. “After that follow, that first time
I received off the ice, I instructed my dad, ‘I’m going to make the ladies’s nationwide
group.’”

The spark of ardour for a brand new on-ice sport helped her to shortly elevate
her recreation. At 14, Tousignant grew to become a member of Canada’s nationwide girls’s
para hockey group and travelled to Norway and Czechia to play in
worldwide tournaments.

Achieving her first para hockey objective so early into choosing up the game,
Tousignant determined to boost the bar and set the next objective for herself: to
characterize Canada on the Paralympics. However, since girls’s para hockey is
not a part of the Paralympic program, she would wish to play with the boys’s
group.

“Everyone was like, ‘That’s not achievable, that’s simply unrealistic. You’re
by no means going to have the ability to do this,’” Tousignant explains.

With a brand new objective in sight, Tousignant started working. Her recreation improved, and he or she
made Quebec’s males’s provincial roster when she was 16 years previous. Soon
afterwards, Hockey Canada got here calling to ask Tousignant to Canada’s
National Para Hockey Team NextGen improvement camp.

“All this made me believe that I could actually make it happen,” she says.
“I could be a part of the men’s national team.”

Following her first NextGen camp in 2019, Tousignant made historical past with
Christina Picton as the primary two girls to play for Canada’s National Para
Hockey Development Team. Tousignant returned to NextGen camp in April 2022
and acquired an invitation to Canada’s National Para Hockey Team choice camp
final September with Alanna Mah.

It was Tousignant’s feistiness, work ethic, communication and imaginative and prescient on the
ice that continued to face out to the teaching workers at every camp.

“She gets 100 per cent of the credit for her growth,” says Team Canada head
coach Russ Herrington. “She’s an excellent instance of investing in your self and
what that may do.

“We’ve seen what an excellent particular person she is and what an excellent teammate she is, however
what’s actually accelerated over the past 12 months is her potential to make an
impression when she’s on the ice.”

Christina Picton (left) and Raphaëlle Tousignant.

Although Tousignant was not initially a part of Canada’s National Para Hockey
Team roster in the beginning of the season, her continued sturdy
performances at camps this spring garnered numerous consideration.

“It wasn’t simply the workers that seen that—there have been numerous veteran
gamers on the group who have been additionally advocating on Raph’s behalf,” Herrington
explains. “As a bunch, all of us definitely felt that she had earned her manner
into representing Canada on the world stage.”

“I used to be not anticipating to be chosen to be a part of that group who might be
going to Moose Jaw. It was simply unimaginable and it’s nonetheless unreal,”
Tousignant says. “I’m simply very completely satisfied for the 14-year-old me who really
believed in herself and by no means gave up on her dream.”

By competing on the 2023 World Para Hockey Championship in Moose Jaw, Sask.,
Tousignant hopes she is going to encourage additional progress within the girls’s recreation.

“Women need to be on the Paralympic Games, need to have their very own
group, need to compete at that stage, too,” she says. “I hope that different
little ladies [across] Canada or around the globe see me and they’ll say,
‘Hey, I want to be like her,’ as a result of in the event that they need to be like me, meaning
they’re going to work tremendous laborious and develop our recreation.”

With this new achievement, Tousignant is nearer than ever earlier than to
attaining her Paralympic dream.

“I do know what I’ve to do to be there, I simply must do it and hold being
myself,” she says. “I think it’s possible.”