Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – When Heidi Peters entered the David Atkinson Gym for her first practice as a MacEwan women's volleyball assistant coach last month, Griffins players gave her a standing ovation.
Fresh off leading Team Canada to a fourth-place finish in women's sitting volleyball at the Paralympics in Japan, Peters was a larger than life hero for the wide-eyed Griffins players.
"A lot of them first saw her on TV," said head coach Ken Briggs. "Nicole (Ban, Team Canada head coach and Griffins associate coach) and Heidi have both told me about people recognizing them – 'we watched your game' and stuff like that. Our girls absolute did.
"For some of them, they've been quiet fans the last couple of years. This was their opportunity to express how much they mean to them."
A MacEwan student in her third year of a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Political Science degree, Peters admitted she was nervous when Briggs first asked her to join the Griffins' coaching staff.
"I was really flattered and honoured to be asked," she said. "But I also laughed – 'oh no, I haven't played indoor in 10 years.'
"So, it's very interesting. Literally everybody has to transfer their indoor skills over to sitting, but now I have to go backwards. I have to think about jumping and time and space. So I have to translate my skills back to indoor, which is very interesting."
Heidi Peters (bottom row, fourth from left) led Team Canada's women's sitting volleyball team to a fourth-place finish at the Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan last month. Other Griffins connections on the team include head coach Nicole Ban (second from left - an associate coach at MacEwan), assistant coaches Kate Rozendaal and Christine Biggs (Griffins alumni), assistant coach Chelsea Hobbs (previously an AC with the Griffins), and mental performance consultant Erin Brennan (previously in that role with the Griffins men's team).
An avid volleyball player throughout her youth, it was a decade ago since Peters entered Grade 12 and prepared for her final year of high school action with Barrhead Composite only to be told she had bone cancer in her left leg.
Despite chemotherapy treatment, the cancer refused to leave and amputation was determined to be the best option to stop the tumour from spreading.
So, there she was in January 2012, age 17, laying in a hospital bed recovering at the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, unsure of her future when in strolled the captain of Team Canada's women's sitting volleyball team.
Jolan Wong, who had lost her right leg to the same cancer a few years earlier and was volunteering at the hospital, had met Peters' mother and came to tell her about a new sport opportunity.
"Just to have a glimmer of hope in that moment was huge," recalled Peters, who tried out for the team in May 2013 and has been with them ever since, competing now in two Paralympics.
"I was so scared," she remembered. "What is this weird sport? What is happening? It's so fast and you're sitting on the ground. My skills that I already had from playing indoor definitely transferred over, but it is a totally different beast."
Eight years later, Peters is among the best sitting women's volleyball players in the world. In fact, she wrapped up the 2020 Paralympics by topping the list of best scorers in the tournament with 66 kills, 22 aces and six blocks, winning the Best Server award.
Heidi Peters had a tournament-leading 22 service aces during the Paralympic women's sitting volleyball competition (Courtesy, Heidi Peters).
"Personally, it was a great tournament for myself," she said. "It was my best international tournament that I've had, so I'm really proud of my personal execution – serving, passing, attacking on the court. I've worked very hard on a lot of things and they all came through – not in all moments, but in a lot of moments."
Team success, though, is a little more nuanced – a muddled mix somewhere in between the disappointment of being denied a medal with a 3-1 loss to Brazil in the bronze game and the proud reflection of posting the program's best-ever finish on the international stage.
Peters admits the sting of losing in the bronze medal match was all consuming, especially in the days immediately following the Paralympics.
"Losing that match was pretty much the most devastating moment of my life thus far," she said. "But I'm really proud of the work that we've done, the training we did over summer and through COVID leading up. It really showed in our performance and the things we worked on really transferred.
"Execution in high pressure moments is really where we're lacking. And that just comes from experience. We have to compete more. That's hard at an international level, especially in a pandemic."
Mental coaches will often tell elite athletes about focusing on the positives to get past the focus on mistakes that can overwhelm the psyche. So, finding positives in the days following the bronze medal loss wasn't an easy process for Peters.
"After our Italy (round-robin) match, which was my personal best in terms of points output (34 points), I did an interview and the guy said, 'Did you know you scored 15 points in the first set?' And I was like, 'no, I just remember that I missed two serves,' she recalled. "So, as athletes, highlights don't stick with you."
Only after reflection was she able to come to terms with what it meant to finish top four.
"Being fourth-best at what you do in the world, not everybody can say that," said Peters. "That in itself is huge. I just think about it from a world-ranking standpoint, our previous finishes – everything we've done has been an improvement. It's just reflected in the outcome.
"There definitely is huge improvement. World para-volley notices that and we're just trying to shake up those top teams."
Heidi Peters celebrates a point during one of their Paralympic matches (Courtesy, Heidi Peters).
They don't have as long to wait for the next opportunity to do that; it's just three years until the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. As far as Peters is concerned, though, she and her teammates would play tomorrow if it meant a chance to rectify the bronze medal loss.
Beyond the finish, though, Team Canada ended up big winners before the tournament even started when they lobbied for increased TV coverage of their sport and won.
"It was really frustrating and devastating to get the news our first two matches wouldn't be streamed," said Peters of news which began a campaign to get the Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS) to increase their coverage. "That was the exact same situation we were in in Rio, only getting playoff matches streamed – so no progress for sitting volleyball. That was really hard to hear.
"But we were definitely listened to. CBC really had our back, which was awesome to have the national broadcaster say they would put up the stream. CBC Sports posted a reel of me when they told us and I couldn't stop smiling for three hours."
This moment is everything ❤️@Devin_Heroux shares news with Paralympian Heidi Peters that CBC extended its sitting volleyball coverage to include live streams of Canada's first two gameshttps://t.co/HxNJMDMQ3Y@VBallCanada @CDNParalympics pic.twitter.com/TIuepuuJOm
— CBC Sports (@cbcsports) August 24, 2021
"It's surreal to advocate for something and demand better and then have all your friends and family send like hundreds of e-mails to the Olympic broadcaster," she said. "It was really special to be listened to."
There is still work to do in increasing Paralympic coverage for sports such as sitting volleyball, but Peters says it's worth it to keep fighting for more awareness.
"It just means so much," she said. "If there's just one physically different or physically disabled kid out there who watches us and it gives them hope for what they can do in sport, it's so worth it."
As she joins the Griffins women's volleyball team at practices and on the sidelines this season, Peters has so many unique high-level sport experiences to share that will have a direct impact on the growth of the program's players.
"I'm just really excited and I like what you said about (bringing) a unique perspective," said Peters. "I've played on the national team through the adult formative years of my life, so I've definitely matured a lot to be able to play at such an elite level and know what that is.
"I'm excited to bring my competition experience to them. We've worked with some incredible mental performance coaches. Our coaching staff is unreal, so I've learned a lot from a lot of really great female coaches.
"They're just so keen to learn," she added of the Griffins players. "They're quite young. I always forget that I'm older than them. I'm excited, they're excited. I just hope we can have a good time, string some wins together and get better."
The Griffins head to Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. next weekend for a series of training and scrimmage matches with and against several different teams as they prepare for their Canada West home-opening weekend on Nov. 5-6 vs. Alberta.
