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Defenceman Jean Labonte, the captain of the defending gold medal sledge hockey team, will be Canada’s flag-bearer during Friday’s opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games.

Labonte, of Gatineau, Que., has competed in three previous Paralympics, winning gold in 2006 in Turin, Italy, and silver at the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan. He also has played in five sledge hockey world championships, winning gold in 2000 and 2008, and bronze in 1996 and 2009.

“Jean is a most deserving athlete to not only captain our sledge hockey team, but to also lead our entire Canadian delegation,” Blair McIntosh, chef de mission of the Canadian team, said in making the announcement Monday.

The Paralympic opening ceremonies will be held at B.C. Place Stadium, the same venue that staged the Olympic opening and closing festivities. The closing ceremonies will be March 21 in Whistler.

Canada will send a 55-member team to the Paralympics, which feature athletes with physical disabilities. The competition will attract 1,350 athletes and team officials from 44 countries.

Canada’s goal is to win enough gold medals to end among the top three countries. The International Paralympic Committee ranks countries on their gold medal performance.

At the 2006 Paralympics in Turin, Canada was ranked sixth after earning 13 medals, including five gold, three silver and five bronze.

The Russian Federation led the medals race with 13 gold and 33 total medals. Germany was next with eight of its 18 medals being gold.

Ukraine, France and the U.S. each had seven gold medals.

The alpine skiing, biathlon and cross-country skiing competitions will be held in Whistler. Sledge hockey and wheelchair curling will be staged in Vancouver.

The Paralympics will receive 50 hours of television coverage, split between English and French.

Bruins centre Marc Savard met with club doctor Peter Asnis and a concussion specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital after travelling back to Boston.

Savard stayed in a Pittsburgh hospital Sunday as a result of a blindside hit he received from Penguins forward Matt Cooke during Boston’s 2-1 loss Sunday.

The veteran forward was able to eat on Monday, which is a excellent sign, according to a team spokesman.

The spokesman added Savard would remain under the care of Bruins medical staff until further notice, with no timetable set for his return.

Savard, who suffered a concussion, released a shot in the offensive zone with 5:37 remaining in the third period. As he leaned forward in the slot, Cooke charged in from his right, blindsiding the Bruins playmaker.

Cooke’s shoulder made clear and hard contact with Savard’s head, sending him down. Savard was on the ice for several minutes before being wheeled off by the team’s medical staff.

No penalty was called on the play.

“It should have been cracked down on a small while ago, I reckon, because you never want to see anyone hurt from anything like that,” said Bruins defenceman Johnny Boychuk of hits to the head. “Everybody’s got their guy on their team who’s going to police for your players.

“But there should be something done [by the NHL] about certain situations like that.”

Boychuk exchanged text messages with Savard on Sunday night to make sure he was OK and said “he seems to be fine.”

“He’s a well-liked guy in our room and you want to make sure he’s OK,” Boychuk added. “It’s a scary scene to have a guy go down like that.”

Cooke denied after the game that he was head-hunting, saying: “It felt like shoulder on shoulder to me. I don’t know. You don’t want to see anyone get hurt. I said sorry to him the best I could.”

The Bruins host Cooke and the Penguins on March 18.

The concussion is the latest injury in what has been a hard year for Savard, who was earlier sidelined by a broken foot and a partial tear of the medial collateral ligament in his knee.

With files from The Canadian Press

Ricky Romero delivers a pitch in Monday’s 4-1 Blue Jays win. (Rob Carr/Associated Press)

Toronto manager Cito Gaston thinks Ricky Romero is a much improved pitcher now that he has some experience.

The 25-year-ancient left-hander pitched three shutout innings, allowing four hits and striking out two, in the Blue Jays’ 4-1 win over the Houston Astros in Kissimmee, Fla., on Monday.

Romero went 13-9 in 29 starts as a rookie last season. He strained an oblique muscle and missed 24 games early in the year but still pitched 178 innings, second on the team to ace Roy Halladay. With Halladay traded to Philadelphia, the more mature Romero could be the front-runner to take over the No. 1 spot in the rotation.

“He’s got experience,” Gaston said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to be a small bit nervous when you’re pitching in the huge leagues for the first time or playing or going up to this.

“Now’s he’s got some experience behind him. He’s been successful and he just gets better all the time.”

J.P. Arencibia hit a solo homer off Houston starter Bud Norris in the first inning, and Lyle Overbay and Brad Emaus had run-scoring doubles off left-handed reliever Tim Byrdak for Toronto.

Norris, expected to fill the No. 4 spot in the Astros’ rotation, allowed two hits and struck out two in two innings in his first start of the spring.

“You’re just trying to get the cobwebs out,” Norris said. “I’ve been doing this for a few years.

“I know what I’m doing pitching, and you just keep going through your routine. You’re just trying to get your routine back in order.”

John McDonald drove in a run with a single in the sixth off Houston lefty Gustavo Chacin. Houston’s J.R. Towles, trying to win the starting role at catcher, drove in the Astros’ lone run in the eighth off Chad Jenkins.

Romero allowed 79 walks in 2009, second in the American League. He hasn’t allowed a single walk in two starts and five total innings this spring.

“He didn’t throw a lot of balls, period,” Gaston said of Monday’s outing. “He just went out and pitched well here again.”

‘They threw the ball real well’

Towles accounted for three of Houston’s seven hits. The Astros averaged more than seven runs in their first four spring games before Romero and Dana Eveland limited them to five hits through six scoreless innings.

“You’d like to see us be able to string some things together,” Houston manager Brad Mills said. “Their two left-handers — Romero and Eveland — they kind of shut us down a small bit.

“They threw the ball real well.”

Zach Stewart pitched a scoreless ninth for Toronto to earn his first save of the spring.