If it's a February Saturday in Canada, hockey games with meaning are being played throughout the rinks and arenas.

Because the long season is slowly coming to a climax, playoff positioning makes each game a little more important than the last.

And that's exactly what's going to happen Saturday at the Leduc Recreation Centre: the gold and bronze medal finals of the World Sledge Hockey Challenge face-off. Canada lost to Russia 2-1 Thursday and will face South Korea in the bronze medal game Saturday.

Wait now, you say? Sledge hockey belongs on the sports pages because, after all, it is a sport where players sit on sledges, propel themselves on a sheet of ice and -- play hockey. There are thunderous hits, sizzling shots, great glove grabs and, of course, highlight reel goals.

So: you're absolutely right -- it's a sports story. Especially in these parts. Because the Canada crew can certainly flirt with the "d" word, as in dynasty -- five gold medals in the last seven world championships, and never finishing worse than silver.

Over the week in Leduc, the Canadians posted a 2-1 round robin record, with their lone loss coming Wednesday: a 2-0 setback against the U.S.

While the Canadians have enjoyed great success sledge hockey -- like every other sport played by people with disabilities -- is a powerful awareness tool of disability itself.

I began my career covering wheelchair basketball in the late 1970s. Wheelchair sport was still rolling out of rehabilitation centres and wasn't viewed as competitive.

It took a few decades for wheelchair sport to be seen as actual knock-them-out-of- your-chair-if-you have-to games with tremendous entertainment value.

With that also came higher expectations from athletes with disabilities. Kieran Block patrols the blueline for Canada and has played the game for the past five years.

"It's about three or four days in the gym and two or three days on ice," says Kieran, who played major junior hockey for the Medicine Hat Tigers and Vancouver Giants. He severely injured both of his legs in a 2007 cliff-jumping mishap.

"We meet and discuss with trainers, dietitians, and sports psychologists among other professionals in the sport community."

And, it's a huge time commitment.

"Imagine a 20-or 30-hour-a- week part time job except its playing hockey so it doesn't feel like work. We must make sure our diet is intact and we don't deviate too much from our training," says Kieran.

But it does more.

"It's an option for people facing disabilities to get out and be active along with promoting a team environment and educational standpoint for the game of hockey itself," says Canadian defenceman Steve Arsenaullt, a nine-year-veteran of the game.

"When you look at an elite level of sledge hockey, the game is the exact counterpart of stand up hockey with the same systems involved."

Hockey games by the thousands take place Saturday. The action, of course, is on the ice with players celebrating the sweetness of victory any agonizing how sour losing can be.

But, maybe, another championship will take place at the Leduc Recreation Centre. In the stands. Fans have the chance to watch world-class sledge hockey, and also embrace the talents, work ethic and commitment of athletes with disabilities.

Saturdays in Canada in February don't get any better.

(Cam Tait is the special project advisor at Challenge Insurance)