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TYRONE HENRY
Sport: Para Ice Hockey
Age: 28
Hometown: Stittsville
Residence: Ottawa
Local Club: Sledge Hockey of Eastern Ontario
Second Paralympics
Instagram: @tyronehenry5
By Ethan Diamandas
A Paralympic gold medal wasn’t always on Tyrone Henry’s mind, but after his accident, it became a driving force in his recovery.
“I always look back to when I was in the hospital and made that goal for myself,” Henry told the Ottawa Sports Pages in a phone interview. “It got me through my rehab; it got me through the first few years of what is now my life.”
In 2010, Henry was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. The crash permanently altered his life. Henry now uses a wheelchair to move around.
It also opened a door to amazing new opportunities.
As he lay in the intensive care unit, Henry, who played ice hockey before his accident, told his father Andrew he’d one day compete in para ice hockey at the Paralympic Games.
Henry’s first chance for gold came at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, where Team Canada fell heartbreakingly short, settling for a silver medal after an overtime loss to the United States.
The loss was painful, but at the Beijing Paralympics starting March 4, Henry gets a second crack at golden glory – and he’ll lean on the lessons he learned from his last go-around.
“At some points [the PyeongChang Paralympics were] probably a bit more overwhelming and I was kind of taking in a bit more of a spectacle of the whole Games,” Henry said. “Compared to this time, it’s more of getting down to the job of it.”
He’s more poised this time around, and after heeding the advice of his veteran teammates in 2018, Henry said he’s now better equipped to handle the pressure of the Games.
“I think learning off that and building that into the last four years has been a big challenge,” said the former Ottawa Falcon. “But it’s been something that I’m kind of proud of because it’s made me definitely into a better all-round player within my role.”
With a talented mix of youth and experience, 28-year-old Henry said he’s grateful the team got a month-long training camp in Calgary, especially since COVID-19 delays have prevented the team from training together for a long time.
“It’s removed a lot of the stress involved,” Henry said. “Because going into Worlds last year, we didn’t really have as much time together. So, this time going into the Paralympics … we have a lot more confidence in ourselves and in each other.”
Between daily on-ice training sessions and time alone at the hotel in Calgary, Henry’s had some time to reflect on why he’s competing at the Games and what he’s looking to accomplish in Beijing. A gold medal is great, but there’s a chance for something more.
“Now I’ve been looking at the game a bit bigger and how the growth in Canada could be with a gold medal around our necks and the kind of growth that we can inspire in the next generation,” said Henry, who serves as the volunteer intermediate division coordinator for Sledge Hockey of Eastern Ontario.
The first time Henry discovered para ice hockey – formerly called sledge hockey – was in 2010 during the Vancouver Paralympics, when he watched on TV before he was even in a wheelchair.
Henry remembers the buzz he felt watching his first para ice hockey game, and that energy has carried him all the way to where he is today.
So, when the puck drops in Beijing, Henry will give everything he has because there’s a good chance someone watching will fall in love with the sport the way he did years ago.
“I’d like to kind of show that passion that I saw in those players at the time, and bring it forward to the next generation,” he said.
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