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"If They Can See It, They Can Dream It": Canadian Women Continue to Inspire Canada's Next Basketball Generation

By: Holly MacKenzie

Whenever a member of the Senior Women’s National Team puts on the Team Canada uniform, they know they’re playing for more than themselves. Of course they’re playing for their teammates and for all of the coaching and support staff as well, but the women who represent Canada on the national stage are keenly aware of the young girls and women watching and learning with basketball dreams of their own.

“They do have that appreciation for something much bigger than just playing the game,” head coach Lisa Thomaidis said of her team. “It’s providing that vision and that role modelling. It’s about inspiring the next generation to have better opportunities and to continue to grow the game and play at a higher level than we are right now.”

Natalie Achonwa will be a three-time Olympian with Team Canada after the team punched its ticket to Tokyo 2020 in a qualifying tournament in Belgium last month. Being a face for young girls to look as they shape their own journeys in sport is a crucial piece of the puzzle for Achonwa.

“It’s very important for young girls to have positive female role models that they can look up to,” Achonwa said. “I think representation is a huge thing. You cannot be what you cannot see. Without having the visibility of having us on TV, having us promoted in the media, you’re unable to have young girls to have these positive, strong, tenacious women to look up to.”

As the Canadian women have moved up the FIBA rankings, currently a program-best 4th worldwide, they’ve had more and more eyes on them. With added exposure comes additional media coverage and televised games. The members of the Canadian Senior National Team welcome the increased attention and hope for more.

“We still have a ways to go, but I think it’s so important that for young girls, if they can see it, they can dream it,” Kayla Alexander said. “I think the media coverage is so important and I’m glad that we’re getting that and I hope it continues to grow and we continue to get more coverage.”

On Wednesday, Kia Nurse hit the game-winning three-pointer that made the University of Canberra Capitals back-to-back WNBL Champions. Last month, Nurse, who led the league in scoring this season, made history by becoming the first import player to win the WNBL MVP.

When the national team hosted the FIBA Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Edmonton this past November, Nurse discussed her position as a role model for young girls.

“I’m extremely fortunate to be in the situation I’m in,” Nurse said. “For me it’s a responsibility, but also a challenge and something I’m really, really excited to be a part of. Continuing to understand those young women that are looking up to me, and being able to put my best foot forward and make sure that everything I do with women’s basketball here, whether it’s making sure we play on Canadian soil, or we play good, or the AAU program I run, that these kids have opportunities to continue to see female athletes at their best and think, ‘That’s what I can do one day.’”

In addition to growing the game with their play at the national level, members of the national team -- those who are currently playing in the WNBA, and those who are playing overseas as well -- have kept a close eye on the changes within the WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement.

“One of the things that I personally liked about the new CBA agreement is that they have money that they are allocating directly to marketing,” Alexander said. “I think that’s huge and will help. To put a plan and money behind getting us out there more, marketing the game, the league and the players. It’s huge. Once people get to see all the players on a personal level and their stories, there’s so many incredible women in our league who are more than just talented basketball players. They have side gigs and personal stories where if you got to know them you’d be in awe.”

Thomaidis first realized she wanted to go overseas to begin a professional playing career after watching a FIBA Americas Tournament in Montreal in 1995. It wasn’t until she had the opportunity to watch women playing at the highest level of basketball live and in person that she realized she wanted to do it too. Getting to now be in charge on the sidelines for a team that is inspiring young girls in the same way she was inspired isn’t something that is lost on her.

“It’s pretty special,” she said. “It’s great that we’re at a point and time now where Canadian girls get to actually see Canadian women play the sport that they love. And have it be more than once every four years where maybe I turn on the tv and see them at the Olympics. They can actually turn on the TV and see the WNBA. We've got Canadian women there. They can be in Edmonton and see us compete live for an AmeriCup championship... As soon as you gain that visual and you have the opportunity to see what’s possible, and to see the levels that are out there, it provides that vision and goals that in the past were really difficult to see.”

Like Thomaidis, Team Canada captain Kim Gaucher’s basketball dream began by watching her national team.

“It’s so important for young girls to have positive female role models,” Gaucher said. “When I was in grade 10, I was able to go watch the Senior Women’s National Team practice in Vancouver, and it was at that moment that I decided that that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be on the Canadian National Team and I wanted to become a professional basketball player. It was having that exposure and seeing what I could do and what I could be that has really driven my dream. It’s so important that young girls are exposed to things that they can do.”

One of the youngest players in Canada’s national team program is Aaliyah Edwards. At just 17 years old, she has grown up with this generation of women’s basketball and to the role models she now shares practices and court time with.

“Women’s basketball in Canada has been growing and I hope it still grows to the point where we broadcast more games or build more camps around women in sport,” Edwards said. “So that little girls, even younger than me, can look up to mentors and have somebody as their motivation. More WNBA players, professional players who are women. I think having women role models and idols would really help the growth in Canada.”

International Women’s Day is March 8. While the athletes on the Senior Women’s National Team certainly deserve recognition on Sunday, they also deserve it every other day of the year as well. As the program continues to seek new heights and accomplish bigger goals on court, every game, article and public appearance brings another girl closer to finding her own basketball dream and that’s a responsibility none of the players take for granted.

As each of these women cement their own basketball legacies in Canada and beyond, they’re mindful of those watching along the way.

“If we get one kid to pick up a basketball and play it and love it and learn all the life skills from it, then I feel like I've done a good job in my career,” Nurse said.