In February, Squash Canada received $766,000 from the Community Sport For All Initiative, which seeks to remove barriers and increase participation rates for underrepresented groups. 

A team of five from Nova Scotia travelled to Ottawa to take Sport For Life training to help implement the programs. Adam Morris attended as the coordinator for Squash Nova Scotia, Josh Rudolph will serve as coach and learning facilitator, Vishesh Bhat and Curtis Caron are community champions for people of diverse abilities, and Bikramjit Singh is a community championship for newcomers to Canada.

The plan, according to Squash Nova Scotia coordinator Adam Morris, is to roll out the newcomers and diverse abilities programs this spring.

“Squash Canada identified a gap for newcomers to Canada who may or may not have played squash in their home country, they come here and they have a hard time accessing sport,” said Morris. “Squash Canada’s goal was to bring all the provinces together and send them home with training and resources to pilot a new program.

“Because we had reached out previously, we were also invited along with one other province to pilot Para squash or wheelchair squash 57, which is a brand-new avenue for the sport. There’s really no para anything in the sport at the moment, so Canada is taking the lead in this.”

The goal, said Morris, is to create sustainable programs that be implemented across the province. He pointed to the community of international students at Cape Breton University and to youth programs at the Sabeel Muslim Youth and Community Centre in Halifax as areas where they are looking to grow interest.

“Facilities are such a struggle for us in Nova Scotia, and I think squash is one of those sports that gets hit a little harder,” said Morris. “A squash court is pretty specific and we don’t have a ton of those across the province, so that’s our biggest barrier.”

To that end, Morris said they are trying to acquire some courts used for the Canada Winter Games a year ago in Prince Edward Island. They’re also looking into other more creative options.

“In Quebec, they’ve crafted a Plexiglass court where you could use a wall from a gym as your front wall and they set up the side walls, just as a way of introducing people to the sport,” said Morris. “There’s also an inflatable court from Squash Canada that we’ve used in some Milk Sport Fairs introducing Grade 3 to 5 students to squash.

“We would love to grow that grassroots participation, but there’s limitations to what we can do right now and we’re still exploring.”

When it comes to teaching the sport to people with diverse abilities, Morris says his group is fortunate to have a wealth of experience to draw on.

“We have a strong connection with Parasport Nova Scotia,” said Morris. “We have a strong connection with Curtis (a 2015 Parapan American Games silver medallist) coming from the parasport world who is able to help us workshop some of these challenges.

“But a lot of the barriers, we just don’t know. This is such a new space we have to explore. I’m only aware of one other wheelchair squash program in the country, and I’ve only come across one other wheelchair squash program around the world, and that’s in Australia.  We’re just trying to be flexible and adaptable as these barriers come up to try and be creative in finding solutions.”

Morris says his group is in the process of recruiting and training coaches and is targeting March and April to begin sessions.

“Ultimately, our goal is to get people to fall in love with squash,” said Morris. “It’s a fun sport to play and to watch, and it can be introduced to anybody. You don’t need any prior experience to be able to play.”