Penguins can’t defend crown
There would be no title defence for the hosts at the Brock Niagara Penguins 10th Annual Wheelchair Basketball Tournament Saturday at Brock University.
The Penguins came close in each game but lost three of four and failed to advance to the championship game. The Tilsonburg Dragons defeated Windsor’s Rose City Riot 37-31 in the championship game with Rose City’s John Azlen earning the Jonathan Morrison Award as the event’s MVP.
“Some days the baskets go in and some days they don’t,” said Lindsay Davis, one of the longest serving members on the Penguins. “It wasn’t for a lack of trying.”
The 35-year-old Fort Erie native enjoyed the day, but wasn’t looking forward to the after effects.
“I don’t notice it as much immediately afterwards but tomorrow morning I will be very stiff,” said the employee at a custom brokerage. “For me, the hardest thing is to be strapped in and confined all day long and it takes a little but for that to work its way out.”
There will be one benefit to the day of exertion.
“I will sleep like a baby tonight,” she said.
The Niagara College graduate has been playing basketball for the past 12 years.
“I saw a demonstration of the sport, fell in love with it and it just progressed from there,” said Davis, who has cerebral palsy. “It was love at first roll.”
She loves everything about the sport.
“It was a chance to play a sport because I didn’t have much of a chance to play able-bodied sports as a child,” she said. “We are all in the same boat. You put everybody in a chair and we are all at the same level. It’s just a great family.”
It’s a sport devoid of Michael Jordan or LeBron James.
“There’s no all-stars and we all need each other to make the plays,” Davis said.
She describes her development in wheelchair basketball as “leaps and bounds.”
The Penguins recently finished up house league play where all 16 of the members of the team are broken up into three teams.
“I just found out last week that I managed to get 50 points in house league this year,” Davis said.
Her previous best came last year when she amassed about 25 points.
“It was more intense practise and that sort of thing and I had an opportunity this year to go to the Ontario (Parasport) Games and I came back with a gold medal.”
She knows there are still improvements to be made to her game.
“I have to work hard, play harder and make those baskets count.”
The Brock tournament is used as the finals for the Ontario Wheelchair Sports Association Development League.
Brock and seven other teams competed in tournaments throughout the winter and the top five squads were invited to the finals at Brock. Each team is made up of eight to 12 para-athletes ages 12 and up.
“We do this tournament for a lot of reasons,” said Karen Natho, the volunteer executive director of Brock Niagara Penguins.
“It opens up the community to know that there is wheelchair basketball going on in the community and it’s a chance for the athletes on our team to have their family members come out and cheer them on,” she said. “It’s also a chance for us to recruit volunteers from Brock, Niagara College and the community to come and help out.”
Saturday’s event has about 16 volunteers pitching in and many had never experienced wheelchair basketball before.
“It’s a chance for them to learn about the parasport of wheelchair basketball,” Natho said.
Wheelchair is one of several sports provided by the Brock Niagara Penguins. Others include the newest addition, sitting volleyball, handcycling, wheelchair racing, wheelchair bocci, wheelchair basketball, paraswim and summer parasport camp.
The club has two nationally ranked wheelchair bocci players, who receive funding and go to national and international events.
It also supports three high school wheelchair racers in Niagara.
The summer parasport camp is for kids ages eight to 14 and it’s used to expose kids with disabilities to as many sports as possible.
“They will go ‘I love this’ and we will enter them into our program,” Natho said.
The Brock Niagara Penguins program started 13 years ago within the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences (FAHS) at Brock University, which includes sport management, recreation and leisure and kinesiology.
“They support our program and we use a lot of their students for placements, co-ops and experiential education,” Natho said.
Natho is the founder of the program.
“When I moved to Niagara I couldn’t believe there were no opportunities for athletes with physical disabilities to be on teams,” she said. “I thought that wasn’t right and I started small with a little tiny swim program but as we gained more athletes, based on the needs of the athletes we’ve created more sports.”
There are presently 43 Brock Niagara Penguins athletes and a number of them play more than one sport.
