Last year ‘one of the most amazing experiences of my life’ - Duinker

BY JOHN DECOSTE

Kings County Register

The last 12 months have been a whirlwind for Abbey Duinker of Cambridge.

First, she left home (at age 16) and Horton High School to spend the 2007/ 2008 school year in Hamilton, Ont. and attend the National Elite Development Academy.

Last summer, she helped the Nova Scotia U-17 girls’ basketball team to a bronze medal at nationals. This summer, she was one of 12 elite players selected for the national junior team, getting to play at the Tournament of the Americas in Argentina - where Team Canada captured the silver medal.

“Getting to attend NEDA was one of the most amazing experiennces of my life so far,” Abbey said last week during a break from the Excellence in Action basketball camp at Horton high.

“I liked going to a practice every day where every player really wanted to be there. The level of competition is amazing. On the court, we’d fight for everything; but, off the court, we were all best friends.”

Duinker and six of her NEDA teammates were chosen to the national junior team, which qualified for the 2009 FIBA U-19 World Championships for Women with its runner-up finish at the Tournament of the Americas in Buenos Aires.

“It didn’t really sink in until after just what I’d accomplished in making the national junior team,” she said. Once reality sank in, “it was incredible to be able to go to Argentina and play at that level.”

Canada had a 4-1 record at the international tournament, losing only to the gold-medal winners from the U.S.

Abbey is in line to make the national junior team again next year and get to compete at the world championships in Thailand.

“I’m hoping to be able to go,” she said, but added, realistically, “I have a whole year’s worth of hard work between now and then.”

Abbey is home for a couple of weeks of well-earned downtime, after which she hopes to be able to return to Ontario – and NEDA – for her Grade 12 year.

“I’d really like to go back this fall,” she said, though she added, “I’m not 100 per cent sure I’ll be able to. It’s something I’ll need to talk over with my parents.”

When the Canadian senior women’s team failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, funding was cut for all of Canada Basketball’s womens’ programs. Programs like NEDA will continue, but with the parents of the athletes required to assume a greater percentage of the cost. If she ends up not going back to NEDA, Abbey will return to Horton.

As for what the future might hold, Abbey admitted, “I haven’t really had time to think about that.

“Some schools in the U.S. have already expressed interest (in her and her teammates), and there’s always Acadia” – and the chance to, once again, play on the same team as her older sister, Emma, and be coached by Bev Greenlaw.

“I’m still a member of the Nova Scotia provincial U-17 team” and, as such, will compete at the national championships Aug. 17-24 in Charlottetown, where Nova Scotia will try to surpass last year’s bronze medal.

“I don’t really get a rest,” she said. “It’s been pretty much full-time all the time since last summer - but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”