Adapt and Overcome: Marni Abbott-Peter’s Wheelchair Basketball Journey

Marni Abbott-Peter and the Canadian women's wheelchair basketball team had just won its first gold medal in program history after beating the United States at the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona, Spain. 

It was a milestone that marked the beginning of a future dynasty. One that saw Abbott-Peter and the national team go on to win three-straight Paralympic gold medals and World Championships from 1992 to 2002 — the only wheelchair basketball team to ever accomplish the feat. 

The young girl who grew up with dreams of becoming a nurse and skiing competitively at the Olympics was now a Paralympic champion on the basketball court. 

For her, it was also a turning point towards overcoming the shreds of doubt and self-pity left behind from when she was 18-years-old. 

In 1983, Abbott-Peter crashed during a ski run on the hills of SilverStar Mountain Resort in Okanagan Valley, B.C.. The incident left her with significant damage to the third, fourth and fifth thoracic vertebrae between her shoulder blades. 

"Sport really made me understand that walking wasn't as important as it seemed to be at the time that I broke my back," Abbott-Peter said.

Growing up, most of Abbott-Peter’s childhood was spent playing outside and around her home’s field, where her family also kept the dirt bikes and horses. Such was the good life of living on a small farm in Salmo, B.C., a town located south of the city of Nelson, where she was born. 

By the time she was three-years-old, her father was already bringing Abbott-Peter and her older brother, Bill, and younger sister, Misti, to the local ski hills. 

At the age of five, Abbott-Peter had a delightful surprise when she arrived at one of her races at the Nancy Greene Ski League. Greene, her childhood idol, had come to make an appearance that day. 

While the words Greene spoke of during her visit remain a blur to Abbott-Peter now, the memory remains. She remembers the wool ski sweater worn by the former Olympic gold medalist and the feeling from holding one of the medals the legendary Canadian ski racer brought in the palm of her hand. 

When her family moved to Enderby, B.C., everyone Abbott-Peter knew seemed to be involved in hockey or figure skating. Skiing had been her pastime as a kid. So, in the spirit of trying new things – and because all her friends were doing it – she laced up a pair of figure skates and glided onto the ice.

“Like a bull in a china shop,” was how her mom described it, Abbott-Peter said. 

In 1988, she chose to give up her swimming career in hopes of finding a path onto the court. Among those who had the most notable impact in her transition was Tim Frick, who was coaching at Douglas College at the time. 

For months on end, the future women’s national team bench boss arrived with Abbott-Peter at the Royals’ basketball gym to help her train, shoot, and practice – sometimes for four hours a day. 

Abbott-Peter was 26-years-old when she received an invitation to join the Canadian national team in 1992. The duty to fill the gap left behind from the Class 1.0 players who had retired loomed. Right away, the rookie guard was given big minutes early in her career. 

She loved every second of it. 

For what Abbott-Peter lacked in speed, she made up for with her aggressive two-way playing style and intensity on the court. She worked to create scoring opportunities for her teammates through the pick-and-roll and made life miserable for teams who attempted to match her physicality on defense. 

And while easy buckets were a difficult luxury for opposing scorers to buy, it sometimes came at the untimely expense of her availability. 

“I definitely either fouled out or was close to fouling out of every single game,” Abbott-Peter said.

Abbott-Peter’s career on the national team spanned all the way into the early 2000s. Many of her teammates, such as Chantal Benoit, Jennifer Krempien, Kendra Ohama, Linda Kutrowski and Tracey Ferguson stayed on throughout. Some of whom still remain her best friends. 

It was trust that kept their teams together when emotions clashed during games and what made them a favourite heading into the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, Greece.

She assumed it would end with the same results every other one had: with a gold medal around her neck. 

Until it didn’t. 

The team that didn’t know how to lose were beaten by the Americans in the Semifinals. But it was how it happened. The team endured a dreadful first-half performance, which made the defeat even harder for Abbott-Peter and her teammates to digest. 

“I don’t know how in the heck our coaching staff got us to regroup and win the bronze medal the next day,” Abbott-Peter said, “But we were devastated.”

While the veteran guard considered staying on for a bit longer after initially having plans to retire coming into the tournament, the mileage from travelling and playing high-level competition was reaching an aching toll on Abbott-Peter’s body. She had also made a decision with her husband, Richard Peter, that they were going to try and raise a family together. 

She was ready to start a new chapter as a wheelchair basketball coach.

The couple were living in Germany when Abbott-Peter received a call from Bill Johnson, who was the head coach of Canada’s women’s program. At first, she thought he was calling to ask her to be an assistant coach for the upcoming 2010 World Championships which was three months out. When she called to give her answer, Johnson’s voice replied back. 

“Actually Marn, no. We need you to play,” Abbott-Peter recalled hearing Johnson’s request with surprise.

Johnson followed up by saying they would only need her to play seven or eight minutes a game. Abbott-Peter asked Richard what he thought about the offer. He was worried that she might get hurt – even though she was also playing on a German club team to help out and stay in shape. 

It didn’t take long before Abbott-Peter sustained an injury. This time, by friendly fire. During a warmup drill before their first game, one of her teammates grabbed a rebound and elbowed Abbott-Peter in her left eye socket coming down. The hit gave her a black eye to start off the tournament. 

People commented that her play looked no different than it did from her final season before retiring. But inside, she could feel that something was missing. 

“I just didn’t have that eye of the tiger,” Abbott-Peter said. 

Today, Abbott-Peter and Richard live in Vancouver, where she works full-time with the B.C. Wheelchair Basketball Society managing its Let’s Play program. The initiative focuses on giving children with physical disabilities in the province a chance to develop sport-specific skills through play. 

Looking back, she doesn’t consider herself a superstar. Her impact as a mentor towards a pioneering wheelchair basketball community that had given so much to her as an athlete, however, says otherwise. 

“It’s like Hotel California,” Abbott-Peter said. “You never leave wheelchair basketball.”