The 17-year-old is in the lab working on his game and preparing for the 2026 domestic calendar
After donning the red and white twice in 2025, Simon Mazi-Keep is carrying the lessons of the international stage into the next chapter of his game — focused on sharpening his skills and raising his overall impact.
The 17-year-old represented Team Canada at the 2025 IWBF Men’s Under-23 World Championship in São Paulo, Brazil, averaging 7.7 points and two rebounds per game, helping Canada secure a ninth-place finish at the tournament.
“That was my first real big tournament,” said Mazi-Keep, who also represented Canada at the 2024 Kitakyushu Cup in Japan. “It was fun, good atmosphere. Really good teams. It was just an overall good experience.”
Four months later, Mazi-Keep once again donned the Maple Leaf, suiting up for Canada at the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile. The Niagara Falls, Ont., native averaged five points and 2.3 rebounds per game, while helping Team Canada capture gold.
“That was fun, it was a good trip. Won gold, so obviously came home successful,” said Mazi-Keep. “It was good seeing the level I need to get to in order to be a good player out there and make the senior team eventually.”
With international experience under his belt, Mazi-Keep is focused on building a more complete, well-rounded game as he prepares to tip off at the National Championships in Edmonton.
“I found that my shooting was pretty well-rounded, but the chair skills are probably my biggest concern that I have to get a bit better at,” Mazi-Keep said of what he learned last season. “Be hard on chairs, work on defence – a lot of it is just experience – the longer you play, the more you’re going to get better.”
His training received a significant lift last year when Mazi-Keep was awarded a FACE Grant from Petro-Canada, funding he invested in a new ball chair.
Living with hereditary spastic paraplegia, Mazi-Keep was introduced to wheelchair basketball seven years ago by a coach with the Brock Niagara Penguins, a moment that set him on a new athletic path.
Already passionate about stand-up basketball, he quickly found that same competitive fire in the wheelchair game — and never looked back.
“I’ve played a lot of different sports: sitting volleyball, sledge hockey, and that’s kind of how I got introduced into basketball too,” Mazi-Keep explained. “I heard about wheelchair basketball while trying other parasports. I went to try it, liked it, and after a while, I noticed I was starting to get better and decided to put all of my time into basketball.”
Off the court, Mazi-Keep is just as driven.
The Grade 12 student, who enjoys cooking in his spare time, plans to take a gap year to explore his next steps before pursuing studies in sociology or psychology, with aspirations to become an addiction specialist.
On the hardwood, however, his ambitions are unwavering.
“Paralympics,” he said. “It’d be great to win gold, but making the senior team is the goal right now.”
Photo courtesy of Cindy Wong