It's all right.
I'm Erica Gavel. I also play wheelchair basketball with Tracey.
Rio was my first Paralympic Games. It was just so amazing. Kind of like yesterday, it was a unique experience that you can't replicate with anything else, and it was like what she alluded to a few minutes ago. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to come here yesterday and today, to see the House of Commons and how things operate.
I'm originally from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. I was born and raised there, fortunately. At the time, I didn't realize how amazing that city and that province are. From the time I was six years old and doing organized sport, I always had female coaches and mentors.
To be completely honest, I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for Lisa Thomaidis from the University of Saskatchewan. Basketball is not a very common sport in Saskatchewan—now it is, but when I was in high school, my city didn't have a club team. She took the time out of her day to come to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She's coaching the national team, and I'm pretty sure that is the last place on her agenda to go to recruit basketball players.
She and Sarah Crooks came to my school and put on a basketball camp. I was 14 at the time. They told the whole group that if we worked really hard, we could play for the University of Saskatchewan.
So, I took that to heart and I worked really hard for three years. Both she and Sarah Crooks stayed in contact with me.
By the beginning of Grade 12, I was offered an opportunity to go there. I went to the University of Saskatchewan and for the first couple of years, everything went according to plan. And then I ended up wrecking my knee really badly. I tore the articular cartilage off my femur and tibia, which means if I were 45, I would go in for a knee replacement tomorrow, but I'm not, so.... I have arthritis. That being said, that's why I'm eligible to do Paralympic sport.
I wrecked my knee in August 2012, and it was actually during the Olympics when Lisa and also Allison McNeill were coaching the senior women's national team to their first Olympic Games. I wasn't directly affiliated with them, but because she was my coach in university, I'd say the university really got behind that Olympic buzz. And when I wrecked my knee a few months later, she kind of just sat me down and explained that these were the experiences from London, and that I could also potentially have those experiences.
At the same time, she got me involved with coaching, and Bruce Craven, from Saskatchewan, who was training me at the time, also got me involved in the exercise physiology component.
In the careers I'm pursuing right now, both of which are high-performance and sport-related, I'm never seen being female as an obstacle. It's just a norm, too, and it's all right to pursue that.
That's kind of my sporting background and how I'm here today.