Canada's Bridges flips from ice to field, set to compete in throwing at Parapan Am Games

Decorated Para hockey player Billy Bridges is about to make his international debut in summer sport. Bridges will throw javelin and shot put in the Parapan American Games.

The six-time Canadian hockey Paralympian — and winner of four medals including gold — has flipped from team sport on ice to an individual field event.

"So new. I feel like such a rookie," Bridges told The Canadian Press.

The 2023 Parapan American Games open Friday in Santiago, Chile, on the heels of the Pan American Games in that city. A Canadian team of almost 500 athletes won 164 medals, including 46 gold, in the Pan Am Games that closed Nov. 5.

Bridges is among 140 Canadian para athletes competing in 14 sports — track and field, swimming, cycling, rugby, basketball, tennis, shooting, judo, badminton, boccia, table tennis, soccer, goalball and archery — until Nov. 26.

Preliminary table tennis competition got underway Thursday ahead of Friday's opening ceremonies at Estadio Nacional.

Bridges was both a wheelchair basketball player and a thrower early in his athletic life before hockey became his full-time sport. He's Canada's all-time Para hockey scoring leader with 199 goals in 227 assists in 251 career games.

The competitive fire still burning in the 39-year-old from Summerside, P.E.I., rekindled his interest in the throwing arts.

His wife Sami Jo Small is a former goaltender for the national women's hockey team, but she also threw javelin and discus at Stanford where she studied mechanical engineering.

"Last year, when I kind of stepped away from hockey, I needed something and I wasn't ready to become a real person and get a real job yet," Bridges said.

"It came back to mind about throwing. In the Tokyo Olympics that just passed, I love watching