Bruno Yizek

Bruno Yizek was always pretty slick on the dance floor, but he earned the nickname 'Mr. Smooth' for his delivery out of the hack on the curling rink.

An avid athlete in a variety of sports while growing up in the rural town of Cardston, Yizek moved to Calgary when he was 18 for post-secondary education. In 1991, Yizek thought his dancing and competitive curling days were done, because of a tumour that was growing around his spinal chord.

"My back was always sore, and my quality of life was getting so bad,." said Yizek who added the benign tumour went undetected for a number of years. "I knew there was a good chance something would be wrong when I went to the hospital, but didn't think I would be paralyzed."

Photo Supplied: Bruno Yizek

A T-7 and T-8 paraplegic, Yizek's obsession for sport was taken away briefly, but it was replaced with a new chair on wheels that gave him a new zest for life.

"I have never seen myself as being in a wheelchair so I wasn't bitter or twisted about it, "added the 60-year-old Yizek, a devoted husband and father of two kids. "I was just so happy I was still alive and that I was still able to care for my family."

Life was great, but Yizek still yearned to curl. Finally after more than a decade away from the game, Yizek's life on the ice was reborn with a new sport - wheelchair curling.

"In 2003, I heard the Canadian Paraplegic Association was in Calgary to start up the sport and was looking for people to try it," said Yizek, a three-time provincial champion skip. "If I wasn't the first one down to the rink to give it a try that day, I was definitely pretty close."

Yizek claims the great thing about wheelchair curling is that just about anyone with access to a wheelchair can play. Age or disability is no barrier, and teams at national and international events played under World Curling Federation rules, are mixed gender. Wheelchair curlers play with the same rocks and on the same ice as regular curlers, though the rocks are thrown from a stationary wheelchair, and there is no sweeping.

The sport made its Paralympic debut at the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games and the first World Wheelchair Curling Championships were held in Switzerland in 2002. Canada won the inaugural gold medal at the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games in Italy, and again at the 2009 World Championships last month in Vancouver.

Quickly recognized as one of the top wheelchair curlers in the country, Yizek is the lone Alberta athlete in a group of 14 players that were invited two years ago to try to make the Canadian team for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. The group was narrowed down to eight this year, and the five-member Paralympic squad will be named in October.

"The sport has given me so many new opportunities in life and I have travelled all over the world," said Yizek. "To be 60 years old and to have the chance to compete for your country, and win a medal at the Paralympics would be the icing on the cake to a sporting career I didn't know that I'd have."