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Canada’s men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams are hoping home court advantage will help end a long World Cup drought.
Canada will host the IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Cup for the first time since 2014, with all games taking place in Ottawa. Action begins Wednesday with championship games on Sept. 19.
This is the first time Canada has hosted the men’s and women’s world championships at the same time, with 17 countries represented by 15 men’s and 12 women’s teams.
Iran was due to take part in the men’s tournament but pulled out over the weekend due to visa issues affecting four members of the team, including the head coach and assistant coach.
Iran was in Canada’s group along with Morocco and Germany and its games will be counted as forfeits without any changes to the schedule.
Canadians know firsthand what home-court advantage can mean. The last time the World Championships were held in Canada, they won gold in Toronto in 2014. The men, meanwhile, are chasing their first world title since 2006.
Both Canadian teams reached the quarterfinals at the last World Cup in Dubai in 2023, with the women finishing fifth and the men sixth.
For Arinn Young, the tournament is a full-circle moment.
With the World Championships held every four years, opportunities to compete on home soil are rare. This will be the veteran’s fourth world championship and second in Canada.
‘Exciting’ to play on home soil again
The 30-year-old was part of Canada’s gold medal-winning team in 2014 but played limited minutes as a rookie, jokingly describing herself as “more of a cheerleader.”
“There are people who have played for 15, 20 years and never got to experience a major on home soil, and I got to experience it twice,” Young said. “Now I’m a veteran of our national team and I play important moments, so it will be a little different. It’s really exciting to showcase who I am as an athlete and who we are as Canada again on home soil.”
As players try to keep politics off the court, Kady Dandeneau borrowed a line from Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying Canada wants to go out with “elbows up.”
“We’re the aggressors, we want to really set the tone that we’re here to attack,” said Dandeneau, who will be playing in her third World Cup. “We don’t wait for someone to give us our opportunity; we’re going to go out there and create our own opportunity and take advantage of it.”
Canada is in Group A along with China, Brazil, Great Britain, Australia and Spain. Group B includes the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Algeria, Germany and France.
On the men’s side, Canada won its last world title 20 years ago in Amsterdam and took bronze when Edmonton hosted the world championships in 1994.
Veteran Nick Gonchin says Canada may lack in size, but it makes up for it in chemistry.
“We play the best team basketball”
That camaraderie is especially noticeable given the varied backgrounds of the players on the roster, from 17-year-old Ibrahim Oza to 42-year-old Tyler Miller.
“We are playing the best team basketball,” Gonchin said. “So, I like to think that that’s going to be our strength because that’s what we have to build on and drive as a team rather than individual athletes just playing in the NBA.”
The men’s tournament is divided into four groups. The USA, Italy, Brazil and the Netherlands make up Group A; Australia, Great Britain, Türkiye and Argentina are in Group B; Spain, Japan, Poland and Colombia are in Group C; and Canada, Morocco and Germany were drawn into Group D after Iran’s withdrawal.
Canada head coach Matteo Feriani says his team must be ready to fight from the start.
“When you play internationally, the competition is very intense and requires a lot of physical effort,” Feriani said. “And when you are the home team, everyone wants to beat you. They will want to oppose us.”
Canada’s women open play on Wednesday against Spain and the men against Morocco.
The US men’s team is the reigning world champion, while the Netherlands holds the women’s title.