Dominic Cozzolino is happy he took the break from Para hockey. However, it didn’t take long for the competitive itch to catch up to him.
The star forward will be making his return to Paralympic action for the first time since 2018 when Canada’s hockey team takes on Slovakia in its Group B opener on Saturday at the Milan Cortina Games.
The 31-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., helped Canada earn silver in 2018, contributing three goals and seven assists in five games. But a shift came when the 2021-22 season approached.
“I think for me, as somebody who’s grown up loving the sport of hockey since I was two, three years old and when I was a boy all I wanted to do was play in the NHL,” Cozzolino said. “And so I started to kind of fall out of love with the game that was so much of my identity growing up and who I am still today.
“And so at that time I kind of knew something was wrong and you know that I needed to take a little bit of a break and looking back on it now I’m so grateful.”
Cozzolino returned to school and worked on building more relationships in his life during his break.
But the break only lasted six months. Six months that included missing the 2022 Beijing Games, where Canada earned silver again.
“I was back in the gym and back on the ice relatively quickly and I definitely had a tough time being a spectator instead of the one being in the dressing room and on the ice,” he said. “So I would say that hunger for the game came back pretty fast.”
“So happy really that I went through that experience because it helped me grow so much as a person, also as an athlete,” Cozzolino added. “… I’m just so thankful that I’m able to be in this position now having gone through that and learned everything.”
Cozzolino returned to finish fourth in overall scoring at the 2023 Para hockey world championship with 10 points (six goals, four assists) to share the team lead with fellow star forward Tyler McGregor as Canada grabbed silver.
At the 2024 worlds, Cozzolino was named the tournament’s top forward with 17 points (seven goals, 10 assists) in five games, including the opening goal in the 2-1 gold-medal win over the United States. He led Canada with 15 points (seven goals, eight assists) in 2025 but the Canadians fell to the U.S. in the final.
“First of all, credit to my teammates and our staff,” he said. “They were so welcoming and made it so easy for me to come back and really welcome me with open arms, which was huge because for me, honestly, I was pretty nervous about coming back and what it was going to feel like. But honestly I just fell in love with the game of hockey all over again.
“I missed being a part of the dressing room and sweating you know and bleeding together. For me it was It was weird because it was like so much time had passed and I felt like a rookie again in a lot of ways. But at the same time, it was, like, I was there the whole time.”
Hockey has been a constant in Cozzolino’s life from the beginning. He says the first shirt he “ever wore was probably a Montreal Canadiens shirt.”
“If you ask my mom and dad as a kid, I was going to be an NHL player and I had no backup plan,” he said. “When people ask me what I wanted to with my life, I don’t think I ever had a different answer once than I was going to play in the NHL.
“I spent all my time out on the driveway shooting pucks out on the backyard rink that my dad would make, on the street playing ball hockey, at practice or games, playing in the GTHL. And so my life was all around hockey since I was two or three years old.”
That all changed when he was checked awkardly into the boards during a game in 2009 that caused him to suffer a spinal cord injury, fracturing his L1 and L2 vertebrae.
“That was so difficult of a time period in my life because hockey and sports and being an athlete was such a huge part of my identity,” Cozzolino said. “And so, not only did I have to find a way to get back on my feet and learn how to walk again, but I had to rediscover who I was as a person and find my identity again after losing it through my accident.”
He was introduced to the idea of playing Para hockey, and upon finding out he had a chance to represent Canada at a Paralympics if good enough, he ran with it beginning in 2012.
“I’m still getting a chance to live out my childhood dreams of wearing a team Canada jersey on ice,” he said. “And so that’s something I’m so grateful for.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2026.
Abdulhamid Ibrahim, The Canadian Press
