TORONTO

Special Olympics athlete Dean Boechler has been passionately playing competitive sports all his life, but no thrill has come close to competing in South Korea.

Boechler, a floor hockey player from Saskatchewan, was one of the 109 athletes Canada sent to the Special Olympics World Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea in 2013.

The 250-pound Saskatoon Stingers defenceman was in Toronto Thursday night for this year’s Special Olympics Canada awards, where his Stingers were awarded team of the year after capturing gold in PyeongChang, as well as provincial and national championships here in Canada. “It was a great experience, had never been (to South Korea) before,” said Boechler, 37, who one day wants to coach floor hockey.

“And let them have the same experience I had,” he said.

Skier Ellen MacNearney, 19, was awarded Special Olympics Canada’s female athlete of the year.

“If it wasn’t for (Special Olympics Canada), I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have,” MacNearney told the crowd gathered inside the CBC’s Glen Gould Studio on Front St. W.

Weightlifter and figure skater Tim Goodacre won male athlete of the year.

Two-time gold medal speed skater Catriona Le May Doan co-hosted the awards ceremony, and told the Toronto Sun it is a celebration of all involved in the athletes’ success.

“We are not necessarily honouring performances, we are honouring people,” said Le May Doan of the athletes, organizers, coaches and volunteers who were acknowledged Thursday night.

Canada had an impressive haul in PyeongChang, bringing back 47 gold, 41 silver, and 21 bronze — in total, seven more than from the games in Boise, Idaho in 2009.

There were 3,300 athletes and coaches from 112 different countries in PyeongChang.

The birth of the Special Olympics can be traced back to the 1960s, when Eunice Kennedy Shriver, seeing a need for such games in the name of fairness to all, began holding summer camps for children with intellectual disabilities. In February 1988, the International Olympic Committee officially endorsed the Special Olympics.

On Friday night, Special Olympics Canada will hold its annual LIMITLESS gala, an evening that celebrates athletes, as well as the organization’s longtime partnership with sports broadcaster, TSN.