Captain Gaucher has ‘experienced it all’
The team captain peeled off her basketball kicks, slid her longsuffering feet into a soothing tub of ice and shared her wisdom about the stages of the journey the National Women’s Basketball team is navigating.
No one on the Pan Am Games gold medal-winning team is better situated for that task than Kim Gaucher as Team Canada fine-tunes for the 10-team FIBA Americas Women’s Championship that runs from Aug. 9 to 16 at the Saville Center, with a berth in the 2016 Summer Olympics on offer to the champion.
“Kim has experienced it all,” said head coach Lisa Thomaidis. “From a 16-year-old (in 2001) going to a World (Championship) qualifier, to an Olympian in London to a fifth-place finish at (2014) World’s, she’s been through everything.”
That includes low points, too, such as being on teams that failed to qualify for the 2004 and ’08 Summer Games. Gaucher, a continuous member of the National Team since 2001, knows as well as any of her teammates, and better than most, how precious this opportunity is.
“The experience (and) leadership she brings ... is invaluable,” Thomaidis said. “We, as coaches, can relay some of that information, but when it comes from a teammate, it just means so much more.
“She’s been the cornerstone of this program for so long. To get to this point, we as a staff are so happy for her.”
Like the rest of her teammates, Gaucher has never experienced the thrill of playing an Olympic qualifying tournament at home, something that far outstrips the excitement of winning a gold medal at the Pam American Games.
“That’ didn’t actually feel hard,” Gaucher said, about the team collectively managing its emotions, not letting the Pan Am euphoria to get out of hand. “We kind of know what’s on the line here. We’ve been preparing for this and we were ready for it.
“They asked us after the tournament if we wanted to cut the nets down and we said, ‘No. We’re not done yet.’ This (Pan Am) isn’t what we’re playing for — it was a lot of fun. We wanted to win gold, we wanted Canada to see what we can do. We wanted to send a message, in a way, to the other teams, as well.
“Like, ‘Hey, we’re good, we’re ready to play this summer. But this is (FIBA Americas) is big. This tournament is what we want to win gold at.”
If they’re going to cut down a net, it will be on Aug. 16 after the FIBA Americas tournament final. So, after winning Pan Am gold, there were relatively brief celebrations, then some muchneeded down time.
For the veteran guard from Mission, B.C., that meant a four-day visit to Ontario cottage country with her Toronto-based sister and other family members, followed by some down time in Connecticut, where her husband is from.
“I didn’t have any media or that kind of stuff, I was away from any distraction,” Gaucher said. “I was able to just wake up in the morning, work out, take a nap, work out. It was perfect.”
The team is back at its home base in Edmonton and back on task now.
The team blends true veterans like Gaucher and younger veterans like Edmonton’s Michelle Plouffe or Guelph, Ont.’s Nathalie Achonwa, both of whom played for Canada at the 2012 Olympics. It’s an important mix.
“Earlier on in my career, we were a young average age,” Gaucher said. “That’s hard when you’re going into tournaments.
“I mean, my first World Championship, I think there wasn’t anybody on the team that had ever been to a World Championship before. At the next one, there were three of us.
“By my third World Championship, there were six or seven girls who had been to one before. We’re coming back here and most of our team was at the last FIBA Americas (2011).
“That’s huge, knowing how this tournament works. I know almost every single player on these other national teams, I know their games.”
Gaucher said most of the teams “kept some things in their back pocket,” during the Pan Am Games, adding the Canadians have not unfurled their absolute A game yet.
“I think we got better each game at Pan Ams, I think we were close to what we, potentially can do and can be,” Gaucher said. “That’s why we’re excited about that.
“We’ve been looking at a lot of game film from Pan Ams and learning from it, seeing our mistakes and seeing (how) we can turn those into a better performance here.”
At what point does Canada, which opens on Sunday against Puerto Rico, really ramp up the intensity for this tournament?
“Like three years ago,” Gaucher said. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this.”