Kady Dandeneau turned back the clock when reminiscing about her time with the UNBC Timberwolves.
She was the guest speaker at the 6th Annual Legacy Breakfast on Thursday from the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.
The 29-year-old spoke about the on-court success she had with university’s women’s basketball team along with fighting through adversity during her playing career, which included a gruesome knee injury during her third season where she tore her ACL, MCL, meniscus and sustained a femur fracture.
The current version of the Timberwolves had their own set of challenges with the injury bug often going with six or seven players the second half of the year and miraculously pulling off nine straight wins before falling to the Calgary Dinos in the Canada West quarter-finals.
Dandeneau’s message to the players was pretty simple.
“I am super proud of how this Timberwolves program has come and all these athletes are a huge part of that, all the work they put in, everything they are doing to advance the Timberwolf program is so great to see and they’ve got me so excited with where this program is going.”
“I had kind of a bit of a different situation with my injury, which was pretty extensive but one of the things I heard a lot of when I was injured was that it’s difficult and you’re probably not going to be the same when you get back. I didn’t want to hear that, that’s not what you want to hear and I would tell any of the athletes to not let anyone tell you what your recovery is going to be like after, it’s not impossible, it’s a tough road but if you put they put the work in they’ll be fine, you kind of write your own story,” added Dandeneau.
After her playing career at UNBC ended, Dandeneau was introduced to Wheelchair Basketball and later was awarded the opportunity to suit up for Canada at the 2019 ParaPan Am Games in Lima, Peru where she led her country to a Gold Medal after a thrilling 67-64 victory over the United States.
Dandeneau dazzled on the international stage becoming the first wheelchair basketball athlete in Canadian history to record a triple-double.
She is now preparing for a very busy summer with the national team where they will participate in the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan from August 25th to September 6th.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that has rocked the entire world, Dandeneau states the team is still getting ready for the games.
“As far as everything goes we are moving forward as planned, we are keeping our training going and there is always something that comes up before the games like before Rio (2016) they had Zika so we’re taking it as it goes.”
“Our summer is pretty jam-packed. We’ve got tournaments with Germany, the Netherlands, the United States and Great Britain so we’ve got a lot of competition with a lot of top teams and we’re going to be competing all summer. We are going to be travelling a lot as we will be in Europe at the end of May for almost three weeks.”
Dandeneau suited up for UNBC from 2007 to 2013 where she earned many on-court accolades, which include being named to the BCCAA Women’s Basketball All-Rookie Team (2007-2008), BCCAA Women’s Basketball Provincial Tournament All-Star (2008-2009), BCCAA Women’s Basketball Second Team All-Star (2009-2010), along with another Second Team Tournament All-Star selection during the 2012 CCWA Women’s Basketball Championship.
The Legacy Breakfast raises money for athlete scholarships and bursaries at UNBC.