{"id":34460,"date":"2015-07-29T14:30:43","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T19:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=34460"},"modified":"2015-07-31T09:54:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-31T14:54:51","slug":"brock-hosting-canadian-wheelchair-basketball-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2015\/07\/brock-hosting-canadian-wheelchair-basketball-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock hosting Canadian wheelchair basketball teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

\"The

The Canadian national men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams are at Brock University this week training for the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games starting Aug. 8.<\/p><\/div>\n

Brock is the last stop in the journey to the Parapan Am Games for the Canadian men\u2019s and women\u2019s national wheelchair basketball teams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

The two teams are at the University this week making final preparations for the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games. The women\u2019s team, which won the 2014 World Championship, is playing a series of exhibition games this week against Germany\u2019s national team.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first of four-consecutive games was held Tuesday night at Bob Davis Gymnasium, and although Canada lost 58-51, head coach Bill Johnson said the team accomplished what it needed to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first couple of games we\u2019re really focused on getting some people some specific situational experience, for instance, players who traditionally don\u2019t play those spots,\u201d Johnson said after Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cWe have one player who\u2019s injured, but the other 11 players all played at least 10 minutes. We always play to win, but we\u2019re really focused on individual preparation (Tuesday and Wednesday) and then the rest of the week we\u2019ll focus on team preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamilton native Melanie Hawtin,<\/a> who was on the team that won gold at the World Championships last year, said the training camp allows the women who don\u2019t normally get to train altogether to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just putting together the fine details and continuing to work on communication with each other and getting lots of court time with each other,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 26-year-old, who trains at Wheelchair Basketball Canada\u2019s national academy in Toronto, said the team isn\u2019t feeling pressure going into the Parapans as reigning world champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly think its something you expect as a high-performance athlete. It\u2019s what you train for every single day, so I don\u2019t think there\u2019s extra pressure. We\u2019re ready,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While the women are playing exhibition games this week, the men are sticking with daily workouts both on and off the court for their training camp.<\/p>\n

The Parapan Am Games, scheduled for Aug. 7 \u2013 15, are crucial for both national teams as it\u2019s their only shot at qualifying for the 2016 Paralymic Games in Rio. The Canadian men are the defending London 2012 Paralympic champions and must finish with gold or silver in Toronto to qualify for Rio. On the women\u2019s side, Team Canada sits atop the world rankings as the reigning world champion, and must finish with a medal in Toronto in order to punch their ticket to Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Additional women\u2019s exhibition games against Germany will start at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night and are free for spectators.<\/p>\n

\n

\"The

The Canadian national men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams are at Brock University this week training for the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games starting Aug. 8.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brock is the last stop in the journey to the ParaPan Am Games for the Canadian men\u2019s and women\u2019s national wheelchair basketball teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[2551,256,3221,3223,408],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34464,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34460\/revisions\/34464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}