COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The 12th annual USA Hockey Disabled Festival will take place Thursday through Sunday (April 7-10) in Michigan. Featuring a record 90 teams and 1,139 players, the event will be held at Fraser Hockeyland Arena in Fraser, Michigan, with additional games being played at the St. Clair Shores Civic Arena in nearby St. Clair Shores, Michigan.
The Festival encompasses all four disciplines of disabled hockey: deaf/hard of hearing, special hockey, sled hockey, and standing/amputee hockey. The event will feature youth and adult sled tournaments; special hockey games; a three-game series with two blind hockey teams; and two warrior divisions for standing/amputee teams comprised of service members who have been injured or disabled during service.
The sixth Toyota-USA Hockey Sled Hockey National Championship will also take place during the Festival and include several members of the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team competing against one another as members of their respective club sled hockey teams. The championship comes just a week after the U.S. National Sled Hockey closed its 2015-16 campaign by claiming the 2016 IPC Pan-Pacific Championship at HARBORCENTER in Buffalo, New York.
The largest disabled hockey event of its kind, the Disabled Festival continues to expand over the years. Last year, the event set records with 71 teams and over 1,000 players. The inaugural event in 2005 included 24 teams and nearly 300 players.
USA Hockey, in partnership with FASTHockey, will provide live streaming coverage of the 2016 USA Hockey Disabled Festival games taking place at Hockeyland Arena, including the Toyota-USA Hockey Sled Hockey National Championship.
Fans wishing to follow all 2016 USA Hockey Disabled Festival action can do so online here. Fans interested to follow the Toyota-USA Hockey National Championship can do so online at Nationals.USAHockey.com and also via the Toyota-USA Hockey National Championships app, available for Android and iOS devices. The Toyota-USA Hockey National Championships app is also available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.
NOTES: For a complete schedule of the 2016 USA Hockey Disabled Festival, click here … The mission of the Festival is to provide a fun and exciting weekend of hockey in a grand event as well as promote and grow disabled hockey throughout the country … The 2017 USA Hockey Disabled Festival is set for April 6-9 in San Jose, California.
