Dornstauder taking stalled season in stride
Local basketball link training at home after Spanish league finishes early
REGINA Quinn Dornstauder’s basketball career has allowed her to travel the globe, but there’s no place like home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are super lucky to live where we do,” says the 24-year-old Regina product. “We’re probably one of the best places to be right now. I’m really happy to be home for a bit.”
Regina hasn’t had an active COVID-19 case since mid-june and there have been no new cases reported since the end of May.
That makes the city a relatively safe haven, especially compared to the U.S. and other hot spots across the pond.
Spain is one of them. Dornstauder witnessed it firsthand when the end of her 2019-20 season was cancelled in the country’s premier women’s basketball league: Liga Femenina Endesa.
Within a few short days, Dornstauder went from a relatively normal routine to scrambling to find a flight home before the country locked down in mid-march.
“It was very fast,” says Dornstauder, who has been watching Spain’s progress long distance. “I did notice that there was an area (of the country) that is going into lockdown again. I have a lot of friends over there too, so I kind of keep tabs with them. For the most part I think they’ve been doing pretty well so I’m not overly concerned about Spain (specifically). Just the way everything is headed, any part of the world could be susceptible to a second wave.”
That prospect doesn’t bode well for Dornstauder, who’s hoping to leave in mid-august for training camp. She’s set to join a new team, Cadi La Seu, which is located in a small mountain town in the Pyrenees.
The league is tentatively scheduled to reopen on Sept. 19, but like most things in the sports/ COVID-19 world it’s subject to change.
For her part, Dornstauder says she’s “not too concerned” about leaving the comforts of home for an area where the virus is more prevalent.
“The anxiety would come more from the fact that I just don’t know how it’s going to affect my season and affect play and all that stuff,” she explains. “But I’m not super anxious about heading into Spain or anything like that. They did a really good job of locking down and minimizing things once they realized (the seriousness). I think the second go-round, if there is another wave, will be much better.
“Overall, I’m not too worried about it.”
Dornstauder, a graduate of Arizona State University, is entering her fourth season in Spain.
There’s a good reason why she continues to go back every year.
“I love it,” says the former Leboldus high school star. “It’s a really great country with really awesome culture and good people. The basketball is good, and I’ve found that it has grown the last couple years, especially the level and the calibre of the players. It just keeps getting better and better. That’s really exciting.”
Dornstauder is also a member of the Canadian senior national program and she was hoping to secure a spot with the Olympic team this summer, but that too is on hold.
The uncertainty of the situation has been a little “unnerving,” but she’s accustomed to adapting on the fly in the volatile world of pro basketball.
“The thing with my career lifestyle, things are up in the air a lot anyway,” she says with a laugh. “I am used to it in the sense that every season I’m somewhere new signing a new contract (on a different team in Spain). With the Olympics, I have to make teams and you never know if you’re going to or not or what you’re going to get selected for.
“I am pretty accustomed to a lot of uncertainty, so I guess this is really testing that skill.”
That includes putting her Olympic
dream on the back burner for now. The Tokyo Games, originally scheduled to open July 24, are now slated to commence at the same time next year.
“They’re saying next July it should be good, so fingers crossed for that,” she says. “Everyone is in the same situation, whether you’re an athlete or not. You just don’t know what is going to happen, so there is definitely a little bit of frustration and everyone can relate to that feeling. I’m just trying to work through it and get myself ready and excited and train mentally and physically for it the best that I can. You have to be ready.”
Therein lies another challenge from a physical standpoint, at least.
“For the first couple of months when the rules were more strict I was doing a lot of basement workouts and that was a big change with different equipment and different movements,” she says. “It was refreshing in some ways because it was a total change of pace. Now I’m lucky to be back in the weight room at least so I can do some of that and I can do my conditioning type of stuff.”
The main source of frustration right now is the inability to access a proper indoor basketball facility.
Dornstauder hopes that’ll change shortly but, in the meantime, she does have the benefit of a strong in-house training team. Her younger brother Kaz is a new recruit with the University of Regina Cougars and her younger sister Zayn just completed her university career at San Diego State.
“We try getting out at the park sometimes and just playing on the outdoor hoops,” says Quinn, who has found a silver lining in her home-life restrictions.
“Being stuck in one place with my family has actually been really good, getting to spend all that quality time with them. It’s not easy times for anyone. Just making the best out of it is all we can do.”