Para ice hockey honoured for lifting women from 1 percent to 20 percent of players

On International Women's Day, 8 March 2026, the International Paralympic Committee announced the winners of its 2026 International Women's Day Recognition Awards, and one of the honourees was an entire sport: World Para Ice Hockey, recognised for a remarkable transformation in who gets to play.

The numbers tell a striking story. In 2021, women made up just 1 percent of participants in Para ice hockey, a sport long dominated almost entirely by men. By 2025, that figure had climbed to nearly 20 percent, the result of a deliberate, sustained effort to open the ice to women and girls. The federation launched the Women's World Challenge in 2022 and, in 2025, held the inaugural Women's World Championships in Dolný Kubín, drawing athletes from more than 14 nations across four continents.

“The numbers tell a striking story.”

The growth went beyond the rink. World Para Ice Hockey also built mentoring, officiating and leadership development programmes to ensure women were represented not only as players but in governance and decision-making roles. Senior Manager Michelle Laflamme captured the spirit of the moment, calling the first Women's World Championships "a historic turning point for our sport, not the end of a journey, but the beginning of a new era."

The IPC also recognised two individual leaders, Lucha Villar Galvez of Peru and Shakhnoza Mirziyoyeva of Uzbekistan, for advancing women in the Paralympic Movement. Together the awards highlight a simple truth: meaningful inclusion does not happen by accident. It takes vision, structure and patience, and when those come together, a sport that once had room for almost no women can, in just a few years, begin to look like a place for everyone.