A group of about 15 Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans hit the Edmonton Garrison Fitness Centre gym last Thursday to compete against and train with one another in wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball and sledge hockey.
It was all part of Soldier On’s Western Area Multisports Camp, an event for injured soldiers and veterans to grow their skills in the games.
When the Gazette caught up with the group, they were passing basketballs, dribbling down the court and learning how to charge one another in wheelchairs.
Ryan Vincent, Soldier On’s regional coordinator for Alberta and Northern Canada, organizes about 15 sporting and creative events a year, which include everything from woodworking and cooking, to hiking and skiing.
But Thursday was his first shot at wheelchair basketball.
“I played basketball, so I figured, it can't be much different,” Vincent said. “But it takes getting used to not using your lower body, where a lot of the time you would project a lot of the power from your jump shot.”
Players also need to learn how to maneuver the wheelchairs, a task that requires mental focus, he said. In one drill, they practice colliding with one another; in another, they chase basketballs down the court, sometimes getting visibly short of breath.
It’s pretty similar to able-bodied basketball, according to Vincent.
“The only thing they’ve touched on is that you can take two full turns and then you have to bounce it, similar to basketball, where you take two full steps before you shoot it.”
Vincent spent parts of his military career jumping out of airplanes as a paratrooper and knocking out 200 pull-ups in a day.
But the military "takes a toll on your body,” Vincent said.
“In our 20s, we just thought we were invincible. We all kind of fed off each other. What guy can do 40 chin-ups in a row type thing … It was an honour to be the most physically fit person.”
He connected with Soldier On started in 2016, when he opened an email invitation for the organization’s national golf camp. At a rough patch in his life, he left his St. Albert home to take a chance on the five-day trip to Ontario.
His time there was so successful that Soldier On invited him to play for Team Canada at a golf competition in Scotland.
Vincent said that many of the players watch their calendars for when Soldier On events pop up.
About two-thirds of the players who attended last week’s camp have ambitions to compete in the Invictus Games, a major international sports competition for wounded, injured and sick military members and veterans.
“We all have the same mindset,” Vincent said. “We all have the same kind of sense of humour. We speak the same language almost … One of the participants yesterday said this is the most fun he’s had in 10 years.”
It was Paul Owen’s third time at a Soldier On event. The St. Albert resident’s first event was a fishing trip two years ago.
“It’s a life changer,” Owen said. “You meet people in the same condition as you are, and it makes you realize, ‘They’re doing that as hard as can be; I can do it harder, or I can just last longer.'”
Owen did a tour in Afghanistan and served in Edmonton before he was medically released in 2015. He was injured playing sports and while at work in the military.
The Soldier On events helped him regain an interest in being physically active, and with the encouragement of his wife, he hits the gym “for a minimum of an hour a day at [his] own pace.”
Now Owen hopes to compete in wheelchair rugby at the 2025 Vancouver Invictus Games.
“The most difficult thing is just the drive,” Owen said. “Now that I’ve got that drive in my system, I just want to keep going.”
