With less than nine weeks until the start of the 2026 Paralympics in Italy, Team Canada's wheelchair curling team is hard at work preparing for the competition.
But this year, a virtual reality program developed in Alberta aims to help athletes bring home the gold.
“To our knowledge, we are not aware of any other programs designed for sedentary users in the sense that they can actually see their body in a virtual simulation,” Jennifer Dornstauder said.
Dornstauder is the technical lead for the project, which was developed at Red Deer Polytechnic Institute late last year.
“It removes the limitations of the training environment, the limitations of training travel, the physical limitations that cause you to cut back on training before a competition,” she said.
“You take away a lot of the physical elements when you might only be interested in training in tactics and strategy.”
Canada's wheelchair curling team has earned a place on the podium at every Paralympic Games, the only country to achieve this feat. One reason for this may be the desire for innovation.
Virtual advantage
Dubbed “chess on ice” by some, the sport differs from its sister discipline in that there is no sweeping involved, so there is a strong emphasis on strategy to ensure the stone lands where it needs to go.
“We have to use technology to make the shots we want. And that's a really cool thing about VR: it can take our game to the next level,” said Dana Ferguson, coach of the national mixed doubles program.
“We're all over the country right now. We need ways that we can train and be together even in different areas. And [the VR] will allow this to be done.”
Another perk? The simulation was created to look like a competition stadium using photographs from Curling Canada. “It will help clear your mind space,” said Collinda Joseph, a member of the Canadian Paralympic team.
“It will take you a few days to get used to it.” [the] environment, and we just don’t have that much time,” she explained.
“Having a VR set…even if you're not there in person, I think it will help a lot just to get a spatial sense of what the arena will look like—and feel.”
Engineers at Red Deer Polytechnic Institute in central Alberta have developed a fully immersive virtual reality program that allows athletes to test the ice and practice their shots even when they're not on the rink. CBC's Lina Elsaadi went to check it out.
Sports that support innovation
Joseph is excited about the use of virtual reality in wheelchair curling. She said there had been significant developments in the equipment used in the sport over the years.
“[Something] There’s more going on now than when I started, which is data collection and analytics… and how that impacts tactical and potentially strategic decisions.”
Wheelchair curler Terry Fowler said he believes this is partly due to the mentality of many para-athletes.
“People in wheelchairs are always looking for something that can be improved… anything that can help us, like even just a little bit, we're more than happy to contribute it, try it.”
But for Joseph, the feeling is much stronger in the wheelchair curling culture than in the other sports she has played. She believes this may be partly due to the relatively young age of the sport.
“I haven’t felt the same passion for supporting change and technology… that can have a significant impact as I do in wheelchair curling,” Joseph said.
“It’s a completely different environment and it’s really cool.”
National team member Gil Dash added that “doing absolutely everything you can… may not seem like a big deal to many, but it is the difference between a bronze, silver or gold medal.”
Technology development
Creating technology for para-athletes is something Dornstauder has worked on before, so at an industry conference this summer, a spontaneous conversation with Curling Canada officials led to the organization telling her they were looking for something similar to the aptly named online simulator chess on ice.
Development soon began. Just four months later, specially designed virtual reality software was created. According to Dornstauder, creating such new technology was eye-opening and “an absolute challenge for animators and programmers.”
“Usually in many VR games you will find [the ice doesn’t] really have many reflective properties… [and] there’s not a lot of detail,” said Kenzie Wiley, lead animator. “It’s an important part of the immersion.”
Besides the ice, there were issues related to the in-game physics, the equipment, and the wheelchair itself, as most of the development team had never played the sport.
But team members, including kinesiologists and programmers, worked through many changes with Curling Canada before a working version was completed.
The next steps the team hopes to include in the software are a heat map, an in-game multiplayer mode, and a working scoreboard.
And it is hoped that in the future, VR will help develop new athletes and introduce others to the sport.
“This will give people more options,” Fowler said. “It will bring more people experience of what we deal with in curling.”
