BRAD BOWDEN proudly displays the gold medal he won in Sledge Hockey at the recent 2006 Torino Paralympics. Canada's sledge hockey team conquered gold at the Paralympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy on Saturday and Bradley Bowden of Orton scored the winning goal.

This is the second gold medal for Mr. Bowden, who also won gold playing wheelchair basketball for Canada in Athens in 2004. He's been told he might be the only para-athlete to win gold in both the summer and winter games.

This accomplished athlete arrived home late on Tuesday night feeling tired but elated over bringing home the gold.

"It's the best feeling," he said. "we worked, as a team, really hard for this."

The team was taken under the wing of Hockey Canada after the last paralympic winter games at Salt Lake City in 2002.

"The team only placed fourth then," said Mr. Bowden. "But the potential to win was there."

Mr. Bowden missed the Salt Lake games due to injury, but he was there to cheer the team on.

Since then, Hockey Canada has outfitted the team and provided for training.

The hopes were to field a strong team at Vancouver in 2010, but the team exceeded expectations, four years earlier.

Just prior to the gold medal match, the team received a call from Wayne Gretzky, who told them it was their chance to redeem what the Olympic men's hockey team couldn't do.

Search for gold began on March 11 when the team dominated the ice in four of the five games, accumulating 30 goals and all but one game was a shutout.

Defending champion Norway was the only team to defeat the Canadian squad 4-1, the first time the two teams met. Canada exacted revenge in the final game snatching the gold medal with a decisive 3-0 victory.

The Canadian teams style of play, using teamwork, was considered by some to be a North American style of playing the game.

Mr. Bowden said the difference in style when playing the Europeans, was quite apparent, especially playing Norway who considered their game to be real "sledge hockey"

"The difference is," said Mr. Bowden. "If you want to play European sledge hockey you go home with a silverif you play hockey you come home with gold." Sledge hockey made its debut at the Paralympics in Lillehammer, Norway in 1994. Canada medaled twice since then: bronze in 1994 and silver in Nagano, Japan, 1998.

The game, like hockey, has six players including the goalie on the ice and follows the International Ice Hockey Rules (IIHR), but some things are modified to meet the players' abilities.

A sledge (used carry the players across the ice) is a medal frame that sits on top of two regular-sized skate blades. It is high enough off the ice so the puck can pass underneath it.

Players use two hockey sticks, cut to 75 cm in length, with a slightly curved blade, for puck handling, on one end and spikes on the other. The spikes work like grips to propel the players. The pre-requisite to qualify for sledge hockey, players must have a physical disability in the lower extremity.

The win by Team Canada may give the sport a shot in the arm and Mr. Bowden hopes more disabled youth will want to try sledge hockey.

Asked what was the best thing about the paralympic experience, he said, "Winning. We were once a fourth-place team that choked in the big games and had lots of injuries. Now we did it!"

He hopes some youth in the area are interested in trying either sledge hockey or wheelchair basketball.

Mr. Bowden won't have much time to rest right now, because he is jetting off to Dallas to resume playing wheelchair basketball and get ready for another tournament in Europe.