Earning the honour of representing Canada was just as important for the Pender Island, B.C. native

For Kady Dandeneau, Wearing the Leaf is a huge honour, but earning her spot was just as important.

The Olympics and high-performance sport first entered Dandeneau’s radar when she met triathlete Simon Whitfield.

“One of the first times I really thought about the Olympics was when I met Simon Whitfield,” Dandeneau recalled. “I was 10 or 11 years old at a cross country meet. Cross-country running was not my thing, but he was there. Everyone knew who he was, and he was running with us. That was neat. It was like, ‘Whoa, Olympian Simon Whitfield’. That was where I was like, ‘Oh, here’s a high-performance athlete’.

“I think I got into watching the Olympics during the Athens Games and then Beijing. I watched everything.”

Growing up on Pender Island, B.C., Dandeneau was an avid baseball player, but it wasn’t until high school, when she focused her attention more seriously on basketball, that she considered the possibility of representing Canada.

“It would have been when I was 13, in grade nine,” said Dandeneau. “That’s when I was like, ‘I want to play in the WNBA, I want to go to university to play basketball.’

“Right around then is when I became a huge Steve Nash fan. There was not a lot of talk about our women’s National Team. We always saw the men’s team, and Steve Nash.”

Dandeneau went on to play basketball for the University of Northern BC, where she spent five years with the Timberwolves, finishing as a two-time BCCAA Provincial Champion, two-time BCCAA All-Star, and All-Star at the National level.

However, multiple knee injuries halted Dandeneau’s stand-up basketball career.

Dandeneau had met fellow Pender Island native and wheelchair basketball coach Tim Frick while in high school. Once she decided her stand-up career was likely over, Dandeneau decided to take Frick up on his offer to try wheelchair basketball.

“I was excited to be playing basketball, but I didn’t think I’d be able to play on the national team,” Dandeneau explained. “I participated in some tournaments but never played the sport before, and that’s when National Team coach Bill Johnson talked to me and was like, ‘Hey, I just wanted to see if maybe you’d be interested in joining our National Team athlete pool.’I was like, ‘Yes, sir. I would’.”

The conversation with Johnson flipped a switch for Dandeneau. From that point forward, her focus was on wheelchair basketball and earning a spot with Team Canada.

“I’d been really unsure of what I was going to do,” she said. “I’d built my life around being an athlete – that’s what I did, that’s what I loved, and now I didn’t have that. When Bill started talking about the National Team, I was like, ‘I’m in’.”

Dandeneau joined the National Team athlete pool in 2016 and made the Senior Women’s National Team in 2017 before the Americas Cup.

Though she’d made the team, Dandeneau knew she had work to do.

“It’s an honour to represent your country and wear that jersey. I always felt like I needed to earn it first,” Dandeneau explained. “For me, I have a very high standard. There was a huge disconnect between the level that I wanted to be at and the level where I was. It’s always an honour to put the jersey on, but to me, it meant more to put that jersey on when I felt like I deserved to be there and I was ready and capable of giving Canada my best performance.”

It wasn’t until two years later that Dandeneau’s wheelchair basketball game reached her desired level.

At the 2019 Parapan American Games, Dandeneau helped Canada win gold over the Americans with a triple-double in the 67-64 victory.

“When I got to Lima, that’s where I felt Canada’s going to get my best,” said Dandeneau. “That’s when I felt ready; I was prepared. I had done all the work. Obviously, there’s never an endpoint, but I felt like, at that point, I was bringing all the tools needed to help Canada succeed.”

The 34-year-old admits Wearing the Leaf in Peru was a different feeling.

“I think I was ready,” Dandeneau said. “I was ready to go, and I was like, ‘I’m ready to show Canada what I can do and how I can represent this country.’ To me, that was, I think, way more special where I felt like I was about to debut myself.”

Leaving the Parapan American Games with gold around her neck was icing on the cake.

“That’s kind of the moment that every athlete hopes will happen. I think that was the cherry on top of it all,” she said. “It was a good game, a good battle between both teams, and we came out on top. It was awesome, and the feeling of accomplishment you have in those moments is surreal.

“Those are the moments you work for; you put in the time every single day, month, year – all that time you put in training – you hope it comes together for that minute your anthem is playing and that night, where you’ve won, and the world is a glittering check.”