Canada to face U.S. with sights set on first Paralympic ice hockey gold in 20 years

Liam Hickey, Tyler McGregor celebrate the goal against China in the Para ice hockey semifinal at the 2026 Paralympic Games in Milan, Italy on March 13, 2026. (Handout – CANADIAN PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE, Matteo Cogliati)

Tyler McGregor has experienced all the team success there is to gain in para ice hockey.

Except for one thing: a Paralympic gold medal.

Canada’s captain, from Forest, Ont., has been a fixture on the team since 2012. In that time, he has won three world championships (2013, 2017, 2024), two Paralympic silver medals (2018, 2022) and a Paralympic bronze (2014).

“I wouldn’t even know how to properly define that,” he said of the possibility of Canada winning gold in Italy. “It would mean the world to me. I’ve been a part of this like Paralympic journey now for coming up on I guess 14, 15 years or whatever. And it’s something that we’ve been chasing this whole time that’s eluded us and we’ve been close.

“I think it would make it so special. Because so much has happened so many ups and downs so many moments of joy but also moments of heartbreak, so much sweat poured on the floor, tears cried sometimes. For that to culminate in a Paralympic gold, I don’t know. That would blow my mind.”

Canada’s lone gold since the event’s inception at the 1994 Games came in Turin, Italy, in 2006.

The Canadians, however, face the tall task of taking down the favourite United States in Sunday’s gold-medal final.

The U.S. has won the last four Paralympic tournaments and avenged its 2024 worlds loss to Canada with a 6-1 gold-medal game win over the Canadians at the 2025 championships.

“We didn’t end up with the result we wanted from Buffalo,” forward Liam Hickey said of the 2025 worlds loss. “It was a pretty lopsided goal-medal game. We didn’t play great and the Americans had probably one of the best games we’ve seen from them in a long time.

“But everything’s a learning opportunity for us, especially with a group like we have, super close-knit, a lot of trust in each other. We’re not getting down on each other at that point. It’s obviously frustrating. We’re all extremely competitive, and we want to win gold for Canada. But we need to take that as a building block to what’s bigger.”

Canada has gone through the competition at the Paralympics with relative ease, outscoring its opponents 26-1 across three preliminary round games. The Canadians then defeated China 4-2 in the semifinals on Friday.

However, the U.S. outscored its opponents 34-2 in the preliminary round before handing Czechia a 6-1 loss in the semifinals.

McGregor, who scored twice in the semifinal win, described it as “the best rivalry in our sport by far, in hockey.”

“It can be gruelling, especially, we do these rivalry series too,” he said. “... So I think that’s what’s amazing about it, is the intensity and the pace of play and the emotion, I think, that goes into that rivalry is so much fun to be a part of. It’s hard to go from that to another game, against another one of our opponents really like it’s, it’s two completely different sports.

“It challenges you to really rise to the occasion to perform on demand under immense pressure to learn how to manage the chaos, to be resilient.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2026.

Abdulhamid Ibrahim, The Canadian Press