Dan Huising is in select company as the only St. Albert athlete on Team Alberta for the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games.
The 32-year-old was picked up by the provincial champion Red Deer floor hockey team for the Feb. 28 to March 3 competition in St. Albert and Jasper.
“It’s an honour to be selected. I’m pretty fortunate to go,” Huising said. “I’m going to meet new people and some of my friends will be out to watch me, too.”
The Superstore employee is excited but nervous the Games are in his hometown.
“It should be lots of fun,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot of pressure but it comes with the territory.”
Huising is a centre who describes himself as a goal scorer. He fired the overtime winner at provincials to put his St. Albert team in the final against the eventual winners from Red Deer.
“They have pretty good players. They are fast and they can pass.”
Saturday at the provincial training camp for the 78 athletes going to the Games, Huising will join his Red Deer teammates at the Metro Sportplex for scrimmages and team bonding.
“It should be exciting,” he said. “It’s kind of like a warm-up for the national Games.”
Servus Credit Union Place is the venue for floor hockey. The gold-medal winners advance to the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“I want to win and hopefully go to worlds,” Huising said. “You just have to do your best and see what happens.”
The last time Huising competed at the national Games was 1996 in Calgary with the St. Albert floor hockey team.
“It was exciting. We didn’t win it but we won some games to get there,” he said. “Just to go that far and get that experience of what to expect was kind of a wakeup call.”
Huising started playing floor hockey at age 12 and over the years celebrated several tournament victories with his St. Albert teammates.
When not filling the net he plays baseball and goes bowling.
“I like to play competitive sports. It’s fun.”
Huising also watches “lots of hockey” and is a big Ryan Smyth fan.
He likes football too and cheers for the Cincinnati Bengals, but isn’t too sure of the Edmonton Eskimos since they traded away quarterback Ricky Ray.
As for his favourite NHL team: “It’s the Oilers, of course!”
