Joel Ewert is one of the lucky ones.
In less than two weeks he will be in Charlottetown, P.E.I., playing for Team B.C. in the 2023 Canada Winter Games in the wheelchair basketball tournament.
Ewert, a , has hit the trifecta. This will be the third Canada Winter Games fop the 23-year-old Prince George native and this time around B.C. is the gold-medal favourite.
Ewert was just 15 when he played wheelchair basketball in the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George and he also competed in Red Deer at the 2019 Canada Games.
B.C. placed seventh in 2015 and was sixth in 2019. But after winning the junior national championship in June (played in Charlottetown) the 12-player squad is the top seed for the 2023 Games.
Ewert’s teammates, Ben Hagkull of Chilliwack and Ben Garrett of Abbotsford, are also heading into their third Canada Games. Riley Stiles of Prince George is one of three alternates on the nine male, three female provincial team.
“Having a disability, it can sometimes be tough to find people going through the same thing as you. You meet these guys when you’re five and now we’re looking to cap off our Canada Games careers with a gold medal.”
After two years of postponements and cancellations during the pandemic, Ewert got back on the tournament train and with his return to the court in wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby, 2022 was action-packed.
In March, Ewert traveled to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and was co-captain of the Canadian men’s team at the U-23 Americas wheelchair basketball qualifier. The Canadian squad went 2-1 to lock up one of two berths in the IWBF U-23 world championship in Phuket, Thailand. Canada ended up 10th in the 12-team world event, played in September.
“I’ve had the pleasure of being trusted with the honour of being a captain throughout my career and I almost don’t like it when people come up and call me captain. It’s just the way you carry yourself and the way you treat your teammates. When I was in Thailand I didn’t play a whole lot but it’s important to show that anybody can be a leader from wherever they are on the court, even if that’s from the bench or the locker room.”
Ewert was born with cerebral palsy, a disorder that affects his ability to move and maintain his balance. Pat and Avril Harris introduced him to wheelchair basketball when he was five and he’s been involved in the sport ever since.
Being a two-sport athlete honed Ewert’s time-management skills. The week after he returned from Thailand, Ewert’s rugby tournament schedule took over and he was away for the next six weekends either at training camps in Vancouver or playing for a Calgary team at tournaments in Seattle and Reno, Nev. After the Games he plans to put less emphasis on basketball to pursue his national team opportunities in rugby.
Other Prince George athletes going for gold in P.E.I.
Three Prince George minor hockey forwards Chase Harrington (Delta Academy U-18) and Cameron Schmidt (RINK Academy Kelowna U-18), and goalie Ryder Green (Cariboo Cougars), have made the cut for the B.C. U-16 male team, which plays the first week of the Games, Feb. 19-25. B.C. opens on Sunday, Feb. 19 against Ontario.
Biathletes Aliah Turner of Prince George and Liam Simons, now based at Sovereign Lake Nordic Ski Club in Vernon, will also get into action the first week of the Games, starting Feb. 21 at Mark Arendz Provincial Ski Park in Brookvale. Turner and Simons will represent the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
Long track speed skaters Jack and Kieran Hanson moved with their family to Fort St. John but have their roots in Prince George with the Prince George Blizzard Speed Skating Club. Benjamin Konwicki of Prince George is the third alternate on the four-skater men’s long track team. Former Blizzard coach Adam Ingle, who now lives in Surrey, is the B.C. long track team manager.
The long track events are also scheduled for the first week of the Games.
