CANADIAN QUICKSTEP
Kia Nurse and women’s basketball team hope to run through Pan Am Games.
She strode down the middle of the field holding aloft a Pan Am Games torch, her hockey-playing brother Darnell right beside her, family just off to one side, local school kids all abuzz, and it had to hit Kia Nurse that the Pan Am Games are real and they are at home.
Named an hour or so earlier as one of Canada’s 12 women’s basketball players for the Games that kick off July 10, the Hamilton native is ready to show off at home in the most significant tournament she has ever played in in Canada.
“I think to get to see your family and friends and see them buying their tickets . . . as it gets closer and closer you just get more excited to be here in a place where everyone who’s supported me over the years can be there, too,” Nurse said after the 45minute torch ceremony at the Games soccer venue.
“It’s kind of surreal, an amazing experience to go through.”
That Nurse has been nominated by Canada Basketball as one of the 12 members of the women’s team comes as no surprise. She and nine holdovers from the team that finished fifth at the world championship last summer are on a roster augmented by the return of stellar WNBA rookie Natalie Achonwa and Toronto’s Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe.
Nurse, 19, is one of the vanguards of a group of athletically talented young players who join a roster heavy with serious international experience to make up one of the best and deepest Canadian teams ever.
Her presence, along with other young guards such as Miah-Marie Langlois of Windsor, Ont., and Nirra Fields of Montreal gives coach Lisa Thomaidis more options than she has ever had. For years, Canada staked its reputation on toughness and defence; the infusion of youth allows them to play quick and fast.
“We’re trying to increase the tempo to take advantage of our athleticism,” Thomaidis said on a conference call. “We’re trying to pick up pace . . . (We) had a great opportunity in Europe to see how we can get accustomed to that and, by all accounts, we’re on the right path.”
Despite the fact the Pan Ams will be the biggest event for Canadian women’s basketball on home soil since the 1996 Olympic qualifier in Hamilton, they will quickly be knocked down a peg.
The qualification tournament for the 2016 Rio Games is in Edmonton Aug. 9-16, making the Toronto tournament a high-profile and important warm-up.
“There’s great things to playing at home and there’s also great pressures,” the coach said. “With this team, we haven’t had the luxury of being able to compete at home in the recent past and to be able to do that at Pan Ams and really get used to what it’s like to play at home and have a home crowd behind you will be great.”
Barring injuries, Thomaidis wants to have exactly the same roster in Edmonton as she has in Toronto and the Pan Ams will give her a chance to work on several things.
“It’s kind of a two-pronged approach,” she said.
“You want to win, you want to win every game but at the same time, you also need to have, at the forefront, improvement and to be playing at your best at that qualifier.
“There are certainly going to be some things that we do that (are) working on development.”