Watching the London 2012 Games had the Quebec City native dreaming of his golden moment
For Vincent Dallaire, Wearing the Leaf and representing Canada is an idea that first popped on his radar while watching the London 2012 Paralympics. Watching the Senior Men’s National Team capture gold for the third time in 12 years made Dallaire think it’d be a cool moment to experience in his wheelchair basketball career.
“I knew David Eng, and I just thought it was cool. They were celebrities back home when we were playing, and I just thought it was cool to see them win,” Dallaire said. Obviously, Patrick Anderson was in his prime at that moment.
“That was the first moment I realized, ‘Okay, it’d be cool to do it.’ I still didn’t think I would. I wasn’t involved in the Under-23 program at that point, either. I thought it’d be cool, but thought nothing more of it.”
Representing Quebec at the 2015 Canada Games in Prince George got the ball rolling to put Dallaire on the National Team radar. In B.C., Dallaire was coached by Marc Antoine Ducharme, who later invited the Quebec City native to a U-23 identification camp in Montreal.
“I’ve known Cindy Ouellet for as long as she’s been playing. Cindy told me, ‘Usually if they like you, you’ll hear from them within six weeks or so’,” Dallaire recalled. “Five weeks after that camp, they made an Under-23 team that went to Minnesota for a tournament. I got invited, and that’s how it started.”
He first put on the Team Canada colours for a series of friendlies against club teams in Minnesota – a learning experience for Dallaire, who didn’t speak English then.
“It was traumatizing because I couldn’t speak English. It was almost like a wakeup call. I was like, ‘Okay, maybe if I learned English would be good’,” he said. “It was cool to wear the jersey. It’s Canada. It’s your jersey, it’s your country. I thought the experience was cool, but I didn’t think it would be a continuous thing.”
Dallaire then made Team Canada’s roster for the Under-23 Worlds qualifier in Mexico. While at the qualifier, he was reclassified from a 1.5 to a 1.0, opening up more playing time for him.
“I got all the minutes in Turkiye for U23,” said Dallaire. That was really the first time I was like, ‘Okay, maybe I do have a shot at making it.’ I was just playing basketball and stuff like that. It was a cool experience. We’re travelling to places that I would never go to on my own, like Turkiye. At that moment, I would never travel to places like that.”
The U23 Worlds experience opened Dallaire’s eyes to a new level of gameplay and preparation.
Before making Team Canada, Dallaire admitted he didn’t give much thought to pregame preparation or routines.
“You must get used to the travel, the game time and take it more seriously,” he said. “I didn’t have a pregame routine because I was just free-balling it. Mental preparation and physical preparation were not things I’d done. I had always just rolled into the gym, warmed up for 10-15 minutes and then just played the whole 40 minutes—you do that two or three times a day because that’s how tournaments worked.
“Having to be ready for one game a day and practice – it was all new, and it all happened at the same time. It was overwhelming, but I had fun.”
Dallaire was then invited to his first Senior National Team camp as a 17-year-old, another learning experience for the teenager.
“I showed up in Vegas with one good wheel and one metal wheel. We’re playing 3×3 right after Christmas – that’s when they used to do selection camp – the second week of January,” Dallaire said. “I show up in Vegas with nothing, don’t expect anything and then I made the team somehow. That was, still to this day, terrifying, but it was pretty cool. At that point, I said, ‘Okay, maybe I can do this’. I’m still getting my head around, ‘Maybe I have a chance to do this’.”
With words of encouragement from then-head coach Jerry Tonello, Dallaire began believing he could be a contributor at the senior level. He suited up with the SMNT at the 2015 Parapan American Games in Toronto, where Canada put together a 5-1 record, winning a silver medal on home soil.
Then came a reality check for Dallaire.
While preparing for his first Paralympic Games, he was cut from the men’s team headed to Rio.
“This is the first time I got cut,” Dallaire recalled. “It was rough because I was still at that point where I’m like, ‘Okay, like maybe I could do something.’
“This is the point where I thought I was taking basketball more seriously and then getting cut for Rio. It was a wakeup call like, ‘Okay, maybe I should take this a little bit more seriously.’ It was a it was a wakeup call, for sure.”
Under first-year coach Matteo Feriani, Dallaire rebounded, made Canada’s roster for the 2017 Americas Cup, and hasn’t missed a beat since.
As he prepares for his second Paralympic Games in Paris, Dallaire credits Feriani for helping him put the pieces of his game together to be a staple on the men’s team.
“Matteo doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He’ll tell you exactly how it is,” said Dallaire. I lived at the academy at that point, and Matteo was at training every day. With Matteo, you’re going to get it straight, exactly how it is. I think that was good for me to have that wakeup call of, ‘Alright, I believe in you, if you get it together. We could really do something.’