How Canada’s Raphaëlle Tousignant is making Para hockey history
R aphaëlle Tousignant still remembers how it felt to strap into her sledge and slide onto the ice for the first time as a 12-year-old, the feel of the cool arena air on her face as she experimented holding herself upright with picks and sticks in that very first Para hockey session. And she still recalls the words out of her mouth afterwards:
“I told my dad that I was going to go to the Paralympics,” says Tousignant, now 21.
Three years earlier, at age nine, Tousignant fell while playing ringette and doctors discovered a tumour that had developed on her hip. Tests revealed it was a sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that starts in soft tissue or bone. After a few months of chemotherapy proved unsuccessful, the decision was made to amputate her leg, which meant a much lower likelihood of the cancer coming back. Following a few more rounds of chemotherapy post-surgery, Tousignant was declared cancer-free that same year she got her first taste of Para hockey.
“I knew I’d be able to walk with a prosthetic leg, but at that moment I was convinced I wouldn’t do any more sports,” she recalls of her post-surgery mindset. That trip to the rink showed her otherwise. “It was a turning point, knowing I could still play even if I couldn’t skate.”