When a car accident rendered Kristen McBride a quadriplegic it seemed her days of playing team sports were over. Now, two and half years later and with the help of an old teammate and close friend, she will be representing B.C. at the National Wheelchair Rugby Championships in Halifax this May.
Last year, a friend at the G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver introduced McBride to the sport. She said the fact wheel chair rugby players is played on a team is what attracted her to the sport.
"I don't really like independent sports," she said. "I have always played sports like ringette and soccer, so to be able to find another sport that I can play and love and that is a team sport is just awesome."
Her friend Aileen Reed became involved with McBride right from the beginning of her wheelchair rugby adventure and is now the assistant coach of her provincial team travelling to nationals. Being apart of McBride's team allowed Reed to once again participate with her old teammate.
"We have always had sports together. We used to play ringette together, and soccer," said Reed, who accompanied McBride to her first attempt at the sport. "We went down once to try it and right away I was like 'this is awesome.'"
Wheelchair rugby is played indoors in teams of four. Only quadriplegics, people with spinal cord injuries causing leg and arm impairments, play and a classification system is in place to insure teams have relatively the same levels of injuries. Players use specialize sports chairs that have medal pieces in front of them allowing for blocking or "picking" other players.
When McBride, first started playing she borrowed chairs from the rec centre, which she said was frustrating because often they were too big or the wheels didn't work properly.
Recently, with the help of her parents, a $4,000 custom-built chair was purchased for McBride and she said her new chair allows her to play at a different level.
"When Aileen asked me how my new chair was it was so good I couldn't even describe it in words," she said.
Reed has her entire trip to Nationals paid for by the team; however, McBride had to come up with her own accommodation and food costs. In response to this the volunteers at the Squamish Fire raised over $800 for her trip. McBride said she "couldn't believe" the amount the volunteers at the fire department raised and wanted to stress how grateful she was for their contribution.
"It's so amazing; I am so thankful," she said.
McBride, who is also trained in early childhood education and is studying an event management program at Capilano College to help with the organizing of the G.K. Ripper, an annual mountain bike race to raise money for people with spinal cord injuries, credits her positive attitude to the support of people like the volunteers at the fire department as well as her family and friends.
"I have really great parents and if I didn't have Aileen to drive me down and push me and keep me going I wouldn't have been playing wheelchair rugby."
The girls leave for Halifax on May 10 to compete in the national competition.
