Canada edges Britain in Paralympic wheelchair rugby overtime thriller
Canadians play defending champion Australia Friday
With the clock ticking down on regulation time Thursday, Canada's Zak Madell drilled Britain's Ayaz Bhuta so hard, the bone-jarring force lifted Bhuta's wheels clear off the ground and sent him sailing sideways.
It was wheelchair rugby's version of a good, hard tackle, and had the Canadian crowd squealing with delight.
A gentle game, it's not.
Britain failed to score on the play, and Canada would go on to beat Britain 50-49 in the overtime thriller, improving to 2-0 at the Rio Paralympics.
"We knew it was going to be tough," Madell, one of the world's best players, said afterward.
"I even joked about it going to overtime because the last couple of times we've played [Britain] it has been that way ... but we managed to come together when it mattered, and came out on top."
Hail Mary pass
The 22-year-old from Okotoks, Alta., scored 30 goals to lead Canada in the win, and threw a long pass that dropped perfectly into the hands of Trevor Hirschfield for the winning point with less than a second left in overtime.
"I don't think that's our first look in those situations," Hirschfield said of the Hail Mary pass. "Hopefully we can get that [ball] in on the ground. But need be, I'll be there to give Zak a hand whenever he needs somebody to dish to."
Canada, with two silver medals and one bronze, has never won Paralympic gold in the game it invented.
The hard-hitting sport, formerly known as "murderball," and made famous by the Oscar-nominated documentary of the same name, was created in 1976 by five Canadian wheelchair athletes.
The specialized chairs look like something out of Mad Max. The protective steel wheel covers — like hub caps — are pock-marked with dents and scratches. Like battle scars, they're a point of pride. Spares are stacked up behind the team's bench.
The physicality, many of the players say, is what drew them to the game.
It's been a whole lot of hitting our own teammates preparing for this. And so now to go out and hit somebody else, it's a nice change of scenery.- Zak Madell
Cody Caldwell, who played triple-A hockey growing up, broke his neck diving into shallow water in Sylvan Lake, Alta., on the Canada Day long weekend in 2008.
His occupational therapist played the Murderball movie for him less than two weeks into his lengthy hospital stay.
"I could hardly move in a hospital bed, but she showed me it, and the potential of these guys who broke their necks, that was a nice motivation boost that that was an option," Caldwell said. "I don't know if my mom was too appreciative of seeing that movie right off the bat. But I enjoyed it.
"[Parents] treat you pretty gentle ... especially being a mom. So to see people getting flipped out of wheelchairs, when your son just broke his neck is not the most appealing thing I don't think," he added with a laugh.
The game isn't all clanging metal and flipped chairs. The flow of the game is much like able-bodied rugby, with continual chess-like moving and passing. The crowd erupts in a crescendo of cheers when a player breaks free and sprints for the try line.
Coaches, meanwhile, face the challenge of balancing their lineup. Players are rated between 0.5 and 3.5 — the lower the score, the less mobility the player has. The four players on the floor cannot total more than eight points.
'Puppies in a garage'
In a game also sometimes referred to as "quad rugby," most of Canada's players suffered spinal cord injuries. Like Caldwell, Miranda Biletski, the squad's only female player, broke her neck in a diving accident. Travis Murao was injured snowboarding, while Byron Green was mountain biking.
Patrice Dagenais was working a summer job for his father's construction company and fell from the second floor of a building down to the basement. Veteran David Willsie, who's making his fifth Paralympic appearance, tripped playing hockey and slid head-first into the boards.
Willsie featured in Murderball, which documented the fierce rivalry between Canada and the U.S.
The Canadians opened the Paralympics with a 62-48 victory over host Brazil on Wednesday night, and as some of the last athletes to start competing in Rio, were more than happy to hit the floor.
"We're like puppies in a garage, like, 'Open the door, open the door, open the door,"' Willsie said the night before Canada's opener.
"We've been itching for so long," added Madell, who lost his fingers and legs to a staph infection when he was 10. "We came into the village for opening ceremonies, so we've been in since Sept. 6, didn't start playing until the 14th.
"So it's been a whole lot of hitting our own teammates preparing for this. And so now to go out and hit somebody else, it's a nice change of scenery."
The Canadians play defending Paralympic champion Australia on Friday. The semifinals are Saturday, while the gold-medal game goes Sunday, just before the closing ceremonies.