BWAGS BLOG

A couple of weeks ago some of my teammates and I had the opportunity to take part in 2012 Paralympic & Olympic Celebration of Excellence – Heroes Tour.  It was a great opportunity for Olympians and Paralympian’s to unite forces and celebrate our sports and success’ on the same stage.  It’s rare that we ever get to interact, so it was a great time to meet with each other and share our experiences from London.

I joined the Heroes tour in Toronto after most of the athletes started in Ottawa with an appearance at local schools and hospitals..oh and a quick visit to see the Prime Minister.  We visited schools all over the greater Toronto area, as well as local hospitals.  It was a chance to give back and share our experiences from London 2012, and to give kids an idea of what it takes to get to and compete at the pinnacle of your sport.

One of our stops on the tour was at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital…My good buddy Jordan pictured in the middle has a lot of hardware around his neck! Photo courtesy of Canadian Paralympic Committee

We also had the pleasure of being invited to a reception hosted by the Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

A quick picture with Dalton McGuinty. Photo courtesy of Canadian Paralympic Committee

Yes he was attempting to give me a hug. Photo courtesy of Canadian Paralympic Committee

Teammate Adam Lancia and I getting a picture with Canadian Sport Institute Ontario CEO Debbie Low. Photo courtesy of Canadian Paralympic Committee.

Heroes Parade

It was certainly a proud day to be a Canadian Athlete! Toronto was alive with pride and patriotism for the Canadian  Paralympic and Olympic  Teams.  It felt like I was back in London again with all of the excitement, cheers, and pride from all of the people that lined the downtown streets of  TO.  What an amazing day.

This is the side of our float displaying some of the top Canadian Moments from the Paralympics

These are some of the amazing people and fans that came from all over to celebrate Canada’s top athletes

Tyler, David and I ready to share the Gold

Making our way into Maple Leaf Square..welcomed by thousands of people…what an amazing feeling!

David and I signing some autographs. Photo courtesy of Richard Budman / shot7.com

Pictured here with Olympic Bronze medalist Karina LeBlanc of the women’s soccer team

Aldershot and Burlington represent! Mel and I showing off our hardware from London

My apologies for the lack of blogging as of late – the games come at you fast and furious once the tournament gets started. We just played 5 games in 5 days so it is important to maintain your focus, and preparation. So here is a little update from the last post.

Game 2 vs Great Britain

We played a great game against GB, the atmosphere was incredible.  The North Grenwich Arena was almost sold out and the Canadian and British fans had the joint rocking.  It wasn’t very hard to get up for that game with all of the fans going crazy.  We were led by Patrick Anderson who posted an impressive triple double with 29 points, 14 rebounds, 10 assists.  This is an incredible accomplishment and possibly the first of its kind in Canada Paralympic history. The game was close at half time, but a strong start to the third quarter led to a 70-54 win to send us to 2-0 in our pool.

Pat is on a Paralympic tear. Photo Courtesy of Wheelchair Basketball Canada

Game 3 vs Poland

In the Paralympic tournament each game the competition gets tougher and tougher, and the intensity and physicality of the games start to pick up.  Everyone wants a shot at the Gold medal and its not going to come easy to anyone.  Poland is a tough team with a few great shooters.  Our aim was to shut their main threats down and make some of their lesser threats beat us.  We executed our game plan with balanced team scoring and solid defence to come out with an 83-65 win.  Once again Pat led the way with 34 points,12 assists, and 9 boards just missing out on his second straight triple double.  We also got solid scoring from Richard Peter, Bo Hedges, and David Eng.

One of our major speed threats Chad Jassman brings the ball up the court. Photo courtesy of Wheelchair Basketball Canada.

Game 4 vs Germany

Germany offered us our toughest competition in our pool.  We played them two weeks previous to this match-up and they beat us 70-55 in the Netherlands.  The Germans are an extremely talented team with a solid mix of young and veteran players that are poised to do damage in this years Paralympics.  This was a very physical game, Germany likes to initiate a lot of chair contact and we were ready for it. It was back and forth for the entire game, and with some key half time adjustments we were able to win the game 73-66.  A big shout out goes to our team captain Bo Headges. Bo had an awesome game on both ends of the floor, but he shot the lights out going 11-18 finishing with 24 points.  Every game it seems like we have somebody new step up and provide secondary scoring. Bo put on quite the show hitting tough jump shots and tough inside lay-ups to really put the nail into Germany. Oh yeah – Pat had 25 points, 15 rebounds, and 12 assists…no big deal.

Team Captain Bo Hedges looking to make a rare pass against Germany. Photo courtesy of Wheelchair Basketball Canada.

Game 5 vs Colombia

This was an important game for us.  Colombia beat us last November at the Para Pan American Games in Mexico which qualified them for the 2012 Paralympics. The entire team was motivated to avenge our loss to the Colombians and continue to build momentum going into the quarter finals.  With a strong start and smothering defence we finished the pool play with a 68-42 win and an undefeated 5-0 record in the preliminary’s.  Dave Durepos provided a lot of the offence with 18 points off the bench and four 3 pointers!  It was awesome to watch one of the worlds greatest shooters pick apart a defence and help us clinch a win.

Early and Often Baby! Photo courtesy of Wheelchair Basketball Canada.

We have our quarter final match up tonight against Spain.  We just finished a morning practice preparing for tonight’s game and we can’t wait to get going.

Watch out for these crazy Super Fans while you are watching the game!

Check out this amazing group of people!

Photo courtesy of coach Bowsey! Thanks Coach…

Before I go I just want to give a shout out to our Canadian Women’s wheelchair basketball team.  They lost a tough quarter final match against the USA last night and are now out of the running for a medal.  The ladies played a hard fought game and couldn’t hold onto an early lead. It was 2 gold medal caliber teams going head to head in a single elimination game. I know that they will learn from this and comeback a stronger and more experienced team. Medal or not, Canada is still proud of the women and will continue to cheer them on!

So it has been a while since my last blog post, I have had the honor of being one of the Samsung Paralympic video bloggers so I have been getting that side of the blog rolling.  We have been busy preparing for our upcoming games with on court practices and lots of video sessions breaking down our play and our opponents.  The Paralympics is unlike anything I have ever experienced, its exciting, its overwhelming, but it is also a lot of fun.

Opening Ceremonies

Last night was the official opening of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.  I can’t put into words the feeling that comes across you when you enter a building wearing your countries colors with 80,000 people cheering you on…just incredible. Here is a pic of my favorite moment from the Ceremonies -

In a stadium packed with 80,000 people they fought their way down to field level and miraculously found our team trainer Brett Nagata who tracked me down for this once in a life time picture!

On our way to the Olympic Stadium -

On our Way to the Stadium with Joe, Pat and Tyler…looking good boys

I touched the moon last night -

Photo fun on the inside

Jazzy and Dirt got a hold of it as well -

Crazy Eyes……

Managed to meet some new friends as well -

Making friends with Rwanda – they had awesome Opening Ceremony Clothing!

Made friends with the volunteers too -

The volunteers are awesome here in London

And here is my Samsung Paralympic Blogger video from the Ceremonies:

Game 1 – Canada vs Japan

We had our first game against Japan today.  There was a lot of anticipation leading up to the game, the guys were ready to get rolling and start the Paralympic Tournament.  Both teams started off the game somewhat slow, but by the second quarter the game had picked up its pace.  Patrick Anderson gave us a more then strong boost by scoring the first 27 points for team Canada…he was hard to stop today, hitting tough shots and playing strong defense to lead us to a 68-53 win over Japan.  A big shout out to our team captain Bo Hedges who came out shooting in the second half to give us that secondary scoring that we needed, he finished the game with a big 12 points.  It was also the first Paralympic game for Tyler Miller, Chad Jassman, and myself. Tyler was a beast out there ripping down rebounds and making it hard for Japan to do anything offensively. Chad came in and was all over the court and he got his first Paralympic basket as well. It was an amazing feeling being out there on the biggest stage, representing Canada.  The atmosphere was amazing partly due to these girls -

Kaylee, Mom, and Aimee representing Canada! They are our Super Fans..can’t do it without them!       Photo Courtesy of Wheelchair Basketball Canada

My first Paralympic action -

Subbing in for the first time. Photo courtesy of Abby Bott!

Here is the official game sheet from our game against Japan:

Canada vs Japan. Coach Jerry Tonello holds up the sheet documenting his first win as head coach at the Paralympics

After the game we had some fans waiting for us out front of the Basketball Arena:

Mom,Kaylee, Aimee, Fiona and Abby traveled a long way to come and watch. My groupies.

We had the afternoon off to have a little bit of family time….

Team Canada is on big family – The Wagners, Engs, and Lancia’s dined out. Great families!

That is all for now.  We are getting ready for what is going to be a great game against the host country Great Britain tonight at 9:15 London time or 4:15 Eastern. Thanks to all for the emails, tweets, and Facebook comments…the support is amazing, knowing that we have a whole country behind us! Keep it coming!

This blog post comes to you live from the Athletes Village!  Since my last post we had a short stay in Sheffield.  We had 3 really good days of training at the English Institute of Sport (EIS).  The EIS is a massive multi sporting facility that is incredible, as an athlete it has everything that you want and more.  We were surrounded by everything Olympics – they had some really cool marketing tools that put some sports and world records into perspective, check them out :

Joey could barely touch the men’s Olympic high jump record from 1996

I couldn’t get to the Women’s high jump record….maybe next year…

Check out Adam trying to Pole Vault….

Adam’s going to have to build himself some longer legs….

The EIS also did a great jump of recognizing and promoting their athletes throughout the facility:

Kind of tough to see here – but they recognized the local Paralympians who trained in Sheffield – this was on the floor at the main entrance

More athlete recognition, on the other side of this advertisement – there were tons of post it notes from people wishing the Sheffield Paralympians good luck

I also managed to make a few friends during our stay:

Taking some time to meet some of the locals

We couldn’t stay in Sheffield forever, Friday was finally the day when we would make our way to London and move into the athletes village and get a sneak peak at some of the venues.  There was a lot of excitement and anticipation in the bus, the guys had been waiting a long time for this day.

Bo, David, and Tyler all jacked on our way to London

This first picture is of our equipment truck getting searched at the Olympic Park entrance:

London is on Lockdown

Once we cleared the security checkpoint we were finally in…Welcome to London:

Finally we arrive!

Here is a framed picture of the Paralympic logos decorated in each countries colors:

Canada is in the third row 3 in from the left

After we cleared security it was time to head to our apartment and check out our new dig’s

An awesome blanket on our beds

And our new gear was waiting for us too:

The Hudson Bay Company really hooks up the Athletes, Coaches, and Officials with great clothing…We are the best looking country by far

It didn’t take long to start making new friends in the Village:

Pictured with one of the lovely staff in the village, as Jazzy said – keeping up British/Canadian relations

With all this travel we got a little hungry, the Cafeteria is massive.  They have foods from all over the world – the Best of Britain, African and Caribbean cuisine, McDonalds, and much more.  The food is all cooked fresh, right before your eyes.

Jazzy wasting no time getting into the Olympic Spirit – Free McDonalds in the Village! Side note – yes he is wearing a women’s golf shirt…once again don’t judge him

A man’s gotta eat ….in a men’s golf shirt

After we got some food, we did a little exploring and found out that a teammate is the face of the village!

Oh whats up Bear?….Me and Richard “Bear” Peter. He is kind of a big deal

And finally an awesome view of London from our balcony:

London all lit up

OK folks that is all for now – thanks again for reading..sorry this post got a little long….Only 4 days left until the Games officially open. Lots of cool stuff happening in the next couple of days, we have our first team practice in the North Greenwich Arena, our team Canada Pep rally tomorrow where the flag bearer will be announced and we also have our flag raising ceremony.  So stay tuned for my next blog update with more pictures and info live from London!

Our journey to the London 2012 Paralympics went into full swing last week as we had the honor of being part of the press conference that was officially announcing the 2012 Paralympic team that will be representing Canada.  It was great to see all of the different media outlets that showed up to interview the athletes, coaches, and officials.  From what I have heard the amount of TV and print coverage was awesome. It is important that everyone does their part in promoting the Paralympics, and our various sports so that we can not only increase our brand and sport awareness, but to also send a message to individuals living with a disability to get involved in a sport..any sport.  They need to know that once they get involved in a sport the possibilities and opportunities are endless.

Gotta love the awkward thumbs up!

There was also a special guest appearance by Micheal Buble, who just happened to be walking by.  He was a really cool guy, pretty funny dude who took a lot of time to sit and talk with everyone and take pictures….as you can see by the look on my sister Aimee’s face she is pretty star struck!

PRICELESS!!!

Had to get a pic as well

After the press conference we boarded a plane to Belgium where we would load up on a bus and drive up to the Netherlands to a town called Papendal.  With no time to rest, we began our Paralympic test series against Germany, Turkey, and the up and coming Netherlands team.  This was a great opportunity for us to continue to build as a team and to refine some of our line ups and team concepts that we have been working on over the last six months.  We ended the tournament with an overall record of 3-1; we lost the championship game of the tournament to Germany.  We bank the lessons learned from this loss and move on, Germany played a great game and deserved to win.  Germany has a good team and we look forward to playing them in pool play during the Paralympics.

In Papendal they had this sign counting down the days to the Paralympics – a nice little reminder of why we train so hard as we wheeled by it everyday.

The weather in Papendal was sunny and extremely hot!  And it just happened that the hotel we were staying in didn’t have air conditioning.  My roommate Jazzi and I were staying on the top floor where all the heat was..at one point our room was above 30 degrees…with very little sleep and a lot of humidity there was some serious “heat raging” going on but we survived.

That being said – most of the guys were happy to board a bus back to Belgium so we could escape the heat and head over to London for our Pre Paralympic team training camp in Sheffield.  When we landed in London we were greeted by a welcoming crew who chauffeured us through Heathrow airport to get us through customs, secure our accreditation, and collect our baggage.  These volunteers were on top of everything, it was the most seamless and easy airport experience that I have ever had.  This was a pretty exciting experience and made the whole Paralympics thing seem “real”

The London 2012 greeting crew at Heathrow Airport

A nice welcome message as we went through customs

The guys in line waiting to get their London 2012 accreditation. This is basically your lifeline during the Paralympic games – you can’t go or get anywhere without it!

Here is my official Accreditation – not the best shot but I’ll take it:

It could be worse……

Mine could have turned out like this……

This is the unfortunate photo of Chad Jassman – I think of it as the picture that keeps on giving

That is all for now, we are currently in Sheffield which is roughly 4 hours from London. We make our way to the athletes village this coming Friday August 24th.  Only 7 days to go until the big show starts!  Thanks for reading!