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By Martin Cleary
Little did the two Acadia University Axemen basketball players know the impact they would have on then Grade 7 student Henk Dykhuizen during a skills clinic 55 years ago at his elementary school in Wolfville, N.S.
If those two players could be tracked down today, they would be impressed and pleased to know they kick-started Dykhuizen’s lifetime love of the sport that has pointed him in many directions.
Today, you can still find him sprinting up and down Ottawa courts as a player, after all these years, but maybe not as fast as four or five decades ago. He’s also invested time as a youth competitive team coach, a dedicated referee and a team financial administrator.
If you happen to be in the Ticino region of southern Switzerland from June 27 to July 6, you can see Dykhuizen and three other Ottawa adult basketball players compete on three different Canadian teams during the 17th World Maxibasketball Championships.
The numbers for the largest basketball tournament in the world are staggering – more than 6,000 players, coaches and staff from 40 countries, 400 teams in five-year age brackets from 35 to 80 years old and games in 26 gymnasiums.
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Dykhuizen, who played one season with the University of Windsor in his senior year and experienced the 1980 CIAU Final 8 championship tournament, will compete in the men’s 65-69 division with nine other players from across Canada. Toronto’s Norm Clarke, who played for Canada at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympic Games for head coach Jack Donohue of Kanata, will be one of them.
Ottawa’s Chris Biegler, the CIAU men’s player of the year for the 1986-87 season and a high-scoring triple hall of famer, and Nepean’s Terry Garrow, who lives in Hamilton but was a two-time Great Plains’ conference champion out of St. Pius X High School and a bronze-medallist at the 1985 CIAU championship for the University of Manitoba, will represent Canada in the men’s 60-64 division.
Ottawa-born Kory Hallas of Almonte, who played for Canada at the 1994 world championships and was inducted into the Eastern Michigan University E-Club Athletic Hall of Fame in 2024, will dress for Canada’s team in the men’s 55-59 division.
When Dykhuizen, now 67, was introduced to basketball at that school clinic at 12 years old, he was playing youth hockey. But basketball soon took precedence over hockey for him and it has never stopped.
“That was my formal foray into basketball,” Dykhuizen said in a recent phone interview. “I was playing hockey … but at that point I made the decision I was finished. Basketball became my interest and I would never leave.”
Basketball has been good to Dykhuizen as he has remained injury-free, while pounding the hardwood, jumping for rebounds and battling opposing players on defence. It has allowed him to participate in his first world championship and it’s in Europe.
“It’s a bonus to do something more than going to play in Florida for a week-long tournament,” said Dykhuisen, who often has joined a group of players for a high-level adult basketball tournament in Coral Springs, Florida. “Switzerland will be cool. They (other Canadian players) had a lot of fun in 2019 (worlds in Helsinki).
“I’ve always enjoyed it (playing basketball). I can’t see not doing it. It keeps me in a semblance of shape and is good exercise, where I can run around for an hour or an hour and a half.”
Like many masters sports for competitive adults, the social element is a key attraction. When the competition stops, the players and their wives, partners or families become tourists.
When Dykhuizen played at the University of Windsor it took him three years to become a full member of the Lancers’ varsity team. He was a shooter back then, but as an adult player he has become a playmaker, passing the ball so his teammates can score, and working on his defence.
He has played in various leagues across Ottawa for more than 25 years and occasionally will be part of a group that will rent a gym for an hour or two to shoot some hoops, trade baskets and relive the glory days.
Dykhuizen can see himself playing into his 70s, but the older everyone gets the more difficult it is to have enough player depth to build a team. Injuries often end on-court careers and finding enough time also can get in the way.
But the six-foot guard has been able to dribble around those two thorny issues to enjoy competing and the camaraderie.
“It’s fun … the fun of playing the game. As a kid you played games. For me, it’s natural to go to a gym, scrimmage and play. I like the friendships we have.
“We have scrimmage games to five (points) and try to look like we know what we are doing and maintain our shape. We have a good group of players in the city and we have played the past 25 years.”
When Dykhuizen wasn’t playing the game, he could often be found coaching or officiating games.
He coached 14 years with the Ottawa Youth Basketball Academy and guided the Ottawa Elite boys’ teams and the Ottawa Capitals girls’ team in the JUEL (Junior University Elite League) program. For many years, he refereed as many as 180 to 200 youth games a season.
Biegler, who is a member of the University of Regina, city of Regina and Saskatchewan sports halls of fame as an eight-time all-star and All-Canadian who had a career university average of 21.2 points and 7.8 rebounds a game, is looking forward to his second world championships, after playing in Helsinki six years ago.
“It’s a chance to get together and relive past days, socialize and travel,” the six-foot, seven-inch forward said in a phone interview.
When his men’s 60-64 team gathers in Switzerland for the worlds, there may be time for one practice session. Most likely, the players will rely on their years of experience to come together quickly as a team.
“It’s more about playing all the time (in senior leagues),” he added. “I play three to four times a week. When Terry Garrow is in town, I’ll rent some gym time. It’s more about being active than playing together.”
Intuition will play a big part once the game starts. All games will follow official FIBA rules with 40-minute games, a 24-second clock and three referees.
The team will talk before each game to figure out a game plan for a team they know nothing about and then let their basketball skills take over. There’s no designated coach for the team.
“It’s like anything. You play a sport you love and you keep going. It’s also about the social aspects. You meet people,” Biegler, 60, explained. “When we’re in Coral Springs, it’s highly competitive. I still play and act like a kid and trash talk. I love the sport.”
Wendy Alexis sets new age group 100 m world record
Another legend of masters sport in Ottawa was at her very best on Wednesday night at the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club’s Twilight Series meet at Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
Lions sprinter Wendy Alexis, 70, set a new world record for the 70-74 age group in the women’s 100 metres with her 14.63-second performance to break the previous mark of 14.70 set by fellow Canadian (and friend) Karla Del Grande.
Earlier this year, Alexis set indoor world records at the World Masters Athletics Indoor Championships while receiving a warm welcome from the host Americans in Florida.
Martin Cleary has written about amateur sports for over 52 years. A past Canadian sportswriter of the year and Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement in Sport Media honouree, Martin retired from full-time work at the Ottawa Citizen in 2012, but continued to write a bi-weekly “High Achievers” column for the Citizen/Sun.
When the pandemic struck, Martin created the High Achievers “Stay-Safe Edition” to provide some positive news during tough times, via his Twitter account at first and now here at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Martin can be reached by e-mail at martincleary51@gmail.com and on Twitter @martincleary.
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