The U.S. National Sled Hockey Team will train at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry Township this week.
The team will have five practices, all open to the public, starting Thursday evening from 6:15 to 7:50 p.m. There will be two sessions on Friday and Saturday, one in the morning from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and one in the afternoon, from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
The team is coming off a gold medal in the World Sled Hockey Challenge championship in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island last December and has now won six straight major international titles dating back to the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. In that span, they have 34 wins and six losses.
The Pittsburgh sessions will be one of three training camps leading up to the 2017 IPC Sled Hockey World Championship. The team will also get together in Charlotte, N.C. in February and in Santa Barbara, Calif. in March.
Pittsburgh has notable history in sled hockey. Cheswick native Dan McCoy was a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. team in 2014 and the Mighty Penguins club team has been playing since 1998. The Mighty Penguins also call the UPMC Lemieux complex home.
