By Ben Tompkins

NASA Sports

Wheelchair basketball continues to roll throughout the pandemic months

Jun 16, 2021 | 4:33 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The Prince George Lumberjacks are a wheelchair basketball team under the Northern Adapted Sports Association. Due to Covid, they’ve had to suspend all their team competitions.

Because of the pandemic they’ve only been able to hold drop-ins and practices with a mix of competitive and recreational athletes. There was only about a one to two-month span where they were shut down in their endeavours, which allowed them to maintain a strong foundation.

“We were very aware, especially those with disabilities they’re already hit a lot more, so they don’t have any opportunities to get any rec out there. We wanted to keep this going, so that hopefully when we’re all back to normal, we still have this core group that can be there for people to come out and play,” said Rob Stiles, Head Coach for the Lumberjacks.

For Rob, the demand to keep pushing the sport forward was definitely there, as it is one of few sports that is fully inclusive.

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“Wheelchair basketball is fully inclusive, so we do have a range of folks here. Some able-bodied athletes and some individuals with physical disabilities. All of that across the board, I think everyone has just been super keen to keep going.”

A large part of the Club’s focus is to recruit amongst the Northern BC region. They do recruit competitively for tournaments, games and events, however, they do recruit recreationally as well. Their ultimate goal is to represent the North as best they can, as well as get opportunities for as many people as possible.

“It’s especially hard because [there’s] often an individual or a couple of individuals that maybe have some mobility challenges in a whole community. Our goal is to spread it out,” explained Stiles. “We’re trying to start stuff in Terrace. We’ve got chairs ready to go in Fort St. John, as soon as it opens up we’re gonna have a club here. We have the Lumberjacks here and we will cover the North in any way we can.”

For all the athletes that have continued to attend or are new to the sport, they’ve both quite enjoyed the programming remaining available as it’s allowed them to practice their skills.

“I’ve been doing it every week since I first came here and it’s been fun. Everyone here is super nice and I’ve found it easy to catch up with everybody,” says December Mills, who is new to the sport.

“Competitively it’s going to help a lot with not having lost a lot of the skill and keep retaining muscle and just the ability to play,” says Malcolm Hunter, who earned Bronze at the 2020 BC Winter Games, and is gunning for Gold at the Games set to be held in Vernon at the 2022 BC Winter Games.