At the 2022 Paralympic Games in Beijing, China, Carleton student Rob Armstrong and alumna Collinda Joseph fulfilled their life-long dreams of representing their country on the international stage.
Armstrong played on the Team Canada sledge hockey team for the second time and brought home silver, while Joseph, a wheelchair curler, brought home bronze.
Armstrong is a 25-year-old defenceman from Erin, Ont. He is entering his final year at Carleton with a double major in history and law.
When Armstrong was six years old, a virus attacked his spine and damaged the muscles and nerves in one of his legs. He tried sledge hockey for the first time at the age of 10 and said he was instantly hooked.
For the second Paralympics in a row, Canada lost to the United States in the gold medal game. Armstrong won his second consecutive Paralympic silver medal after the 5-0 loss.
“We know we’re a gold medal team at heart. It just didn’t end up that way,” Armstrong said. “It’s unfortunate, but we’re so proud to come home with a medal.”
With six players on the team making their Paralympic debut, Armstrong said he was able to bring “veteran leadership” to the team but that the learning experience went both ways.
“It was a bit of a shock [to have younger players] because I was always the young guy,” he said. “These young kids are just so fast and so strong and I think I learn from them just as much as they can learn from me.”
Armstrong is also a member of the Canadian Paralympic Committee Athletes’ Council. Sitting alongside six other current and retired Canadian Paralympians, Armstrong said the council aims to highlight and grow the Paralympic movement in Canada.
“Having the athletes’ voices is very important and being able to share my voice on that council with such great members is an honour,” he said.
Also at the Paralympics was Joseph, who was the alternate for Canada’s wheelchair curling team. She graduated from Carleton in 1989 with a degree in political science.
In 1983, Joseph sustained a spinal cord injury in a train accident in southern France. She discovered wheelchair curling at an event at Ottawa’s RA Centre in 2006 and started curling competitively shortly after.
As the alternate, Joseph was not one of the four curlers on the ice for the bronze medal match against Slovakia. Instead, she was cheering on her teammates from the bench.
“It was one of the most thrilling and one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. It’s much harder to watch the game than it is to be playing it,” she said.
Canada emerged victorious from the bronze medal match, defeating Slovakia 8-3.
“To say that I played on Team Canada curling, which is one of Canada’s sports, and to come away with medals was absolutely amazing,” she said.
Joseph said the only disappointment in her Paralympic debut was the inability to have her friends and family with her in Beijing due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Assisting the athletes in overcoming this mental obstacle was lead mental performance consultant Kyle Paquette, who travelled with the wheelchair curling team to Beijing.
“With this group in particular, their friends and family are really their foundation and support system,” Paquette said. “[With everything] these people have been through in their lives, their friends and family have been there through it all.”
Paquette said he organized several initiatives encouraging friends and family to get involved, including message boards, photo walls and scheduled down time for video calls.
“We really wanted to make sure that all the family and friends back home felt like they were part of something,” he said. “I was sharing pictures and videos and so many messages of support, whether we were playing or not. It was pretty special.”
Now settled back in Canada, Armstrong and Joseph both said that they are already preparing for the 2026 Paralympic Games in Milan, Italy.
“I always said as long as my body’s healthy and I still love the sport that I’ll keep playing,” Armstrong said. “Both of those are checked off right now.”
Featured image by Angela Burger.
