Canada - Thanks to residency program, Canada's basketball future looks bright

From: www.brooksbulletin.com
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By LORI EWING

HAMILTON (CP) - The sun has yet to come up over the Arthur Burridge Gym at McMaster University, but inside Canada's top young female basketball players are already working up a good sweat, well into their first of two practices for the day.

The mood is focused, but light. They laugh during water breaks. They gather for a team cheer before grabbing their gear and hurrying out of the gym to hop a bus to high school.

The 12 young women are part of the inaugural class of Canada Basketball's National Elite Development Academy (NEDA), a program that brings the most talented players from across the country together under one roof.

Attending Grades 11 and 12, they range in age from 16 to 18.

"This is huge," Fred Nykamp, Canada Basketball's executive director and CEO, boasts of the new program. "I see it as our secret weapon."

The program finally tipped off this past September after two years of planning. Canada Basketball has since secured funding to start a boys' program in Hamilton next September, under head coach Greg Francis.

The young women, who come from as far away as North Vancouver and Moncton, N.B., are billeted with Hamilton residents and attend one of three high schools in the area.

A typical day goes much like this: out of bed at 6 a.m., practise at McMaster at 7 a.m., classes starting at 10 a.m., back at McMaster for 3:30 p.m. afternoon practice, usually involving weights, medicine ball, and watching game film.

They're typical teens and the schedule's not easy.

"Definitely some mornings I wake up and think, I don't want to do it," admits Kelsey Adrian, a guard from Langley, B.C. "But then I look at the long-run and think, 'Well, I want to make the national team,' or 'I want to be better,' so I have to get up and go."

NEDA is modelled after similar programs in countries such as Australia. Six of the top seven women's teams in the world - Russia, Australia, Brazil, Cuba, Spain and France - have centralized programs.

"We are training between four and five hours a day, and that's what the top 16 and 17-year-olds are doing in the world," says head coach Christine Stapleton. "It's not new on the world basketball scene, but it's new to Canada."

The team plays exhibition games against high school boys teams, plus Canadian university and college women's teams.

The common complaint in Canadian basketball has long been lack of preparation time for major events. The longest Stapleton has had a team together before a tournament has been 10 days.

That could almost be considered lengthy. The team that played at last summer's FIBA Americas world qualifying tournament in Mexico City met up at the airport.

"We practised for an hour, and then the next day we had the tournament," says Kalisha Keane of Ajax, Ont., whose younger sister Takima is also part of NEDA. "Other teams had been practising together for the whole year."

Canada still finished third in Mexico City, good enough to qualify for the world championships.

"The beauty of this team is these girls will have had nine months together," says Stapleton. "And then they'll split off and go to different teams this summer, and they will have learned the style of play that all of Canada's women's teams have adopted (a faster game with better execution that favours the relatively small Canadian players)."

Four Canadian women's team will be in action this summer: the under-19 team has qualified for the world championships in Bratislava, Slovakia; the under-21s are at their world tournament in Moscow; the World University Games are being held in Bangkok, Thailand; and the senior women will play at the Pan Am Games followed by the Olympic qualifying tournament.

The 17-year-old Adrian, who was the youngest player at the world championships last summer in Brazil, hopes to play on Canada's senior squad this summer. She can already see improvements in her game.

"I've become smarter," says Adrian. "And we're starting to play more as a team. I can see the girls starting to play better, they have more confidence in themselves."

Sport Canada, a federal government agency, provides the majority of the $350,000 it's costing to run this year's program.

NEDA covers the players' room and board and travel expenses. They have access to physiotherapy and medical care at McMaster and the City of Hamilton has given them bus passes to get around the city.

The players attend weekly study sessions and assistant coach Tyler Slipp keeps close tabs on the players' grades and exam schedules.

Stapleton is thrilled with the improvement she's seen so far.

"It's unbelievable," says the coach. "They're getting stronger, they're getting quicker, their focus is at a whole new level, the intensity that they're training at right now, their understanding of the game, their maturity - every part of their life, whether it's on the court, socially or academically, there's been a dramatic improvement."

For Krysten Boogaard, a 6-3 centre from Regina, leaving home at 18 wasn't easy. But following in her brothers' footsteps made it easier. Derek Boogaard, a winger for the Minnesota Wild, and Aaron, who plays for the Tri-City Americans of the WHL, both left home as teenagers.

"I know what my brothers are going through," says Boogaard. "If they can do it, I figure I can too. That's kind of what drives me to be better in my sport, I see what my older brothers are doing; they're role models to me."

As the pioneers of the NEDA program, all the players will tell you they feel they're a part of something special.

"I think it will be good if we can look back when we're older and say, 'Look a the program now,"' says Keane. "It's helping a lot of young women to improve and will help Canada to improve as a basketball country.

"We'll be able to look back and say, 'Yeah, we were a part of that."'

Stapleton, who moved with her husband from Toronto to the Hamilton area to coach NEDA, says running the program is a dream opportunity for herself and her players.

"It's provided me the opportunity to do what I love to do and that's to positively affect young women and get them performing at their highest level possible," says the coach. "And it's been a gift for them to come together and bring the best out of each other.

"The program is outstanding and what we've been able to accomplish in the first year, I just can't imagine where we'll be in 10 years. A generation from now, it will be unbelievably exciting for basketball here in Canada."