Katie Upham, of North River, N.S., making noise with St. F.X. X-Women, Halifax Thunder

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries

NORTH RIVER, N.S. — After a couple of seasons away from basketball, North River native Katie Upham realized just how much she missed the sport and competing at a high level.

Since coming home to Nova Scotia from Calgary in August, Upham has more than made up for the absence by putting together a team MVP performance for the St. F.X. X-Women during the 2022-23 Atlantic University Sport (AUS) season, and recently winning a Maritime Women’s Basketball Association (MWBA) championship with the undefeated Halifax Thunder.

While in Alberta, she worked with the NHL’s Calgary Flames and with WinSport in Calgary as a strength and conditioning coach for seven months.

“It helped me realize how much I missed being an athlete myself,” Upham said.

‘’That’s when I decided to come back home and play for X and it was perfect because Matt, that summer, got the X job,’’ she said, referring to St. F.X. head coach Matt Skinner, an Antigonish native, who was her assistant coach for three seasons with the University of Calgary Dinos.

COVID interrupted her playing days with the Dinos. So, while she had been in school for four years and had earned her kinesiology degree, she still had two years of athletic eligibility. She decided to go into the education program at St. F.X.

‘’I was 100 per cent focused on the strength and conditioning … coaching teenagers and young adults,” she said. ‘’At the same time, I was coaching a U-15 girls’ basketball team and realized how much I enjoyed working with children and youth; that sparked my desire to become a teacher. Plus, my dad was a teacher and it was always something I thought I would enjoy. After coaching and all that, I thought, ‘yeah, I could be a teacher.’”

She said she’ll continue to include athletics by focusing on physical education as she enters the St. F.X. education program in the fall. This year, she took some prerequisite courses she had to have before entering the program.

‘’Which was a little annoying because it would have been perfect, two years of eligibility and a two-year program,” she said.

Katie Upham

Who – A basketball player from North River.

The latest – Upham was named St. F.X. X-Women’s MVP and was part of the Halifax Thunder’s championship team in the Maritime Women’s Basketball Association.

Did you know? Upham played three seasons at the University of Calgary and earned her kinesiology degree. She is entering the education program this fall at St. F.X.

X-Women Statistics

GP Pts/G Reb./G Assists/G

19 8.3 4.2 3.9

The player

On the court, Upham is a traditional point guard, controlling the offence by getting all of her teammates involved.

‘’Everyone’s definition of a point guard, through and through,” Upham said. ‘’I don’t have the most flashy game, I’m not the most talented scorer, but I try to play the game the right way; earn possessions for my team on defence, and facilitate our offence. Put my teammates in the best positions for them to score … that’s my game really, for as long as I can remember.”

Upham said the style and calibre of play are comparable between the Canada West to AUS conference. The bigger transition was away from the court.

‘’It’s just a whole different setup,” she said.

“There are 17 teams in Canada West. There are teams you go a year or two never playing or maybe you only see them if you’re playing in the playoffs. And with Canada West, unless we were playing at home, we were most likely in the airport flying somewhere. You might be in Vancouver one weekend and then flying to Winnipeg the next. Here, we spend a lot of time on the bus. In that aspect, it’s very different.”

Another difference is with Antigonish, Halifax and Wolfville an easy drive from Truro, family and friends could come out and see her play in person.

‘’It has definitely been a full-circle movement for me,” she said. ‘’I moved back home last August, before that I was away from home a long time. I lived out west in Calgary for six years. Now, I’m getting to play my senior year (as an athlete) in Nova Scotia for one of my old coaches with my friends and family in the stands. … It’s pretty special for me and my family for sure.”

And that opportunity continued into the spring as Upham and her Thunder teammates played out of Saint Mary’s University in the second-year league.

‘’It was such a great experience. Everyone involved in the league does such a great job,” she said. ‘’I would have to shout out Brandon Rafuse, who is the owner of the team, and our head coach Parker Regan and the rest of the staff. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes and they did a great job all season preparing us to be successful. We had an undefeated season and won the championship in a close game against a very good team.”

The Thunder defeated the host Port City Fog 102-93 in Saint John, N.B., to win the Legacy Cup.

While grateful to be part of the championship team, Upham comes up with a different moment when asked for a special memory from her basketball days.

‘’I would have to say, it’s not any of that (individual awards, championships). For me, it will always be the little things that have made my time playing basketball meaningful. The relationships you build, the bonds you form with your teammates through the

‘’This game has given me so much and I’m so thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given to keep playing at St. F.X. and the MWBA. I’m just going to continue to give it my all and have fun.”