Kingsville’s Corbin Watson is hoping the third time is a charm as he gets set to tend the net for Team Canada’s sledge hockey team at the 2026 Paralympics in Milan, Italy in a few weeks’ time.
Watson was part of the Canadian team in 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Canada won bronze at those games. They followed that up with a silver medal at PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018.
He didn’t participate in 2022 in Beijing due to family commitments, but his teammates won silver at that event.
Watson says he’s proud to represent his country on the world stage.
As is the case for Canada’s other two goalies – Adam Kingsmill and Jean-François Huneault – Watson was initially a standup goalie. He lost his lower right leg as the result of a car accident in 2006. Two years later, he began playing Para ice hockey with the Windsor Ice Bullets.
Growing up in Kingsville, his focus is still on hockey, whether it be helping two of his three boys in their minor hockey endeavours, or training for the upcoming Paralympics. He still lives in Kingsville but travels a lot for Team Canada training, games and tournaments.
While the team doesn’t have a league to play in, Watson says they attend training camp in September with the goal being to compete at either the World Championships or the Paralympic Games.
“We hosted a tournament in Dawson City this season that included Canada, USA, Czechia and China, who are the four top teams in the world,” he says. “We lost in the gold medal game to the Americans.”
Watson says there will be eight teams at the Paralympics in Milan and Canada is in a pool with Slovakia, Japan and Czechia, , but make no mistake, their eyes are on the Americans.
“They’ve had our number for quite a while, so it’s time for us to take the gold from them,” he said.
Watson has already left for Oakville, where the team will prepare for the upcoming games for about two weeks. Then it’s off to Milan to get acclimated to their surroundings.
They’ll move into the Olympic village once the Olympic teams have vacated and officials have time to change over the branding from Olympics to Paralympics.
Two other local players are also on the team — Zach Lavin and Tyler McGregor, who both live in Essex County.
Plenty of people back home will be rooting for Corbin Watson and his teammates when they take the ice for their first official game on March 7 versus Slovakia. CBC Gem will livestream the games and Watson says he hopes other networks will show some of them too.
CANADA’S SCHEDULE
Saturday, March 7 — vs Slovakia – 2:35 pm
Monday, March 9 — vs Japan – 2:35 pm
Tuesday, March 10 — vs Czechia – 11:05 am
Semi-finals will take place on Friday, March 13.
All tImes are Eastern Standard Time
Corbin Watson
Photo courtesy of Hockey Canada
