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Sept. 21, 2009

SPOKANE, Wash. - Junior women's basketball player Janelle Bekkering will be blogging for the next few weeks as she and the Canadian National Team prepares for and participates in the FIBA Championship Sept. 23-27. Check back regularly to see what JBekk has to say.

The first couple of days in Brazil turned to out to be quite interesting, anything can happen! On our way to our first practice on Wednesday, the window on our bus fell out while we were driving. The next day we had our first exhibition game, but it wasn't until 9:30 p.m. We had a shoot around, but for the rest of the day we just hung around waiting to play! The game went really well, we ended up losing by one point in the last six seconds. We only had nine players playing in the game because of some injuries, all of which were post players, so I ended up playing the four for part of the game. Besides playing great as a team in the game, the other highlight was probably when a stray cat ran across the floor in the middle of the game. By the time we got back to the hotel it was around midnight and most of us were too hyped up from the game to get to sleep right away. I think I dozed off at around 4 a.m.

We traveled to Cuiaba, Brazil on Friday; the city where the tournament is being held. Being more in central Brazil, the weather is a lot hotter and humid, probably around 90-110 F for most of the day. A few of us who weren't too injured or sore went to shoot around at the gym where we would be playing our games in. The gym had no air conditioning unit, only several fans, and a lot of bugs. I have never seen moths so big; they were probably around two inches long. Bug spray was required, so before every practice and game we have to spray ourselves down. Two days ago (Saturday), we had our second exhibition game against Brazil. The game was neck and neck for most of the game, until the fourth quarter when we had to pull a couple players because of injuries, and we only had two subs. After a very physical game, we ended up losing, but are feeling confident heading into the tournament. At half time of the game the lights went out for about half hour, so with music blaring and the 3000 fans pulling out their lighted cell phones, it seemed more like a dance club than a basketball game. You never know what's going to happen, so you have to just be prepared to deal with all the distractions and focus on playing!