Parahockey | The emergence of Shawn Burnett

Shawn Burnett was 18 when he lost the use of his legs in a skydiving accident. He thought he would never be able to play sports again. Here he is two years later, at 20 years old, one of the best para hockey players in the country.

In August 2022, columnist Patrick Lagacé told you the story of Shawn Burnett in the pages of The Press. Since 15 months have passed since then, let’s refresh our memory…

On June 6, 2021, Shawn Burnett traveled to Farnham for a skydive for a friend’s birthday.

“At first, it didn’t tempt me that much,” he tells us in a quaint café in Vieux-Beloeil. It’s not that I was afraid, but it was still $300 or so that I could put elsewhere. […] My sister, it was on her bucket list. My girlfriend had already made it and she loved it. I said to myself: why not, it’ll be fun! »

The weather was both sunny and windy at the start of the summer season. There were five of them jumping out of the plane, Shawn the last.

His parachute opened as expected and the descent went smoothly, down to about 30 feet above the ground. It was on landing that things went wrong.

“All of a sudden it did this,” he explains, miming a rapid fall with his hand.

A strong gust accelerated the landing.

“I didn’t even have time to blink before we had already landed. [L’instructeur] didn’t have time to react, I think. »

Shawn’s legs absorbed the shock. Once on the ground, he began to experience numbness, tingling and burning sensations from his hips down to his feet. The instructor broke away, advising him not to move. Shawn’s parents, who were watching the jump, arrived at his bedside.

“Everyone told me: “Don’t worry, it might be a pinched nerve, it will come back, it’s nothing serious.” In my head, that reassured me a little. »

Except it wasn’t a pinched nerve. And “it” would not come back.

Shawn had lost the use of his legs.

New career

At the Lindsay-Gingras rehabilitation center in Montreal, Shawn Burnett received a visit that he today describes as a “turning point” in his new life. Maxime Gagnon, general director of Parahockey Montreal, presented himself to him accompanied by three players with varying conditions.

“They told me what para hockey is. They were like, ‘You need to come try this, it’s sick,’” Shawn says.

Shawn is a sportsman. He played hockey throughout his childhood, then in sports studies in high school. He had made the decision to hang up his skates a year earlier, after his fifth year of high school, the year when COVID-19 turned the sports world upside down. At the time, his plans “had changed.” “I was going to fire school. I told myself that I was not going to have a career in hockey,” he explains.

Shawn was convinced by his four visitors; so he attended para hockey training. The following week, on September 25, 2021, not even four months after his accident, he attempted it on a sled.

Not only did Shawn love this “more technical” version of hockey, he also met a new group of friends, “guys with different disabilities.”

“I was so surprised, in the sense that they are all athletes like me, people who don’t let their situation get them down. It’s really a lot of people who reach out to me a lot. »

Shawn started on the development team, which plays recreationally once a week. Except he became so passionate about it that he started training twice a week. A month and a half later, he was invited to the Quebec team’s tryouts.

“In my head I was like, There’s no way I’m going to make the team. »

He made the team. And he helped her, a few months later, win the Canadian Championship for the first time in history.

Team Canada

In his August 2022 column, Patrick Lagacé said that Shawn had been invited to the Team Canada selection camp, which took place two weeks later, in Calgary.

Shawn took part in this camp well. Except that after just three days, he broke his collarbone during contact.

“I had to get back on the plane, go back home. When I got home, my father opened my bag and there was the helmet, the gloves with the Team Canada logos embroidered. It was a surprise! I was freaking out. »

Shawn was out of action for three months due to his injury. He missed important tournaments. Upon returning in January, the team began preparing for the World Championships. As he had not followed the team during the year, he did not participate in the international tournament, but he won the Canadian Championship again with Team Quebec.

This year, Shawn came back “20 ​​times more ready.” He regained his place in the national team.

In October, he participated in the International Para Hockey Cup in the Czech Republic, where the Canadian team won silver. And in mid-November, he and his team will wear the Canadian jerseys for the Sled Hockey Classic in Florida.

“My ultimate goal”

Two and a half years after his accident, Shawn Burnett is happy. He “thinks” he has mourned the use of his legs, even if he has to deal with “phantom pain” at all times. He lives in an adapted loft with his parents, he is well surrounded, he is “100% independent”. He has obviously abandoned his plan to become a firefighter, but he plans to enroll in business, marketing or law.

Shawn owes his happiness to different things. Mostly sports.

“It would have been easy for me to lock myself in my basement and do nothing. Sport has led me to meet other people and do lots of business. It opened doors to opportunities that I would never have had before my accident. »

Thanks to the Adapted Sports Foundation, Shawn enjoys skiing, golf, mountain biking and water skiing. Para hockey, obviously, has become a passion and a job. It allowed him to build strong bonds of friendship. He also received, on October 26, a $4,000 scholarship as part of the Saputo Scholarship Program from the Aléo Foundation.

“My ultimate goal would be to make it to the Paralympic Games,” he said. I would like to participate in the next ones, in 2026.”

We’ve been talking with Shawn for an hour; the tables around us have had time to empty and fill up again. As we turn off our recorder, the young man lists his plan for the day. After his training in Montreal, he must go to the Lindsay-Gingras rehabilitation center to meet an 18-year-old young man who, like him at the same age, has just become paraplegic.

“What are you going to tell him?”

– I find it important to explain to him what happens after you leave the hospital, what is open to you. […] I want to show that in such a short time, you can do so much business. Show him that even if something bad happened, something good can come out of it. It’s a bit like that…and cheering him up. »