Thomaidis became the face of the University of Saskatchewan women’s program in 1998. She has guided the Huskies to six Canada West championships, taken her teams to the national playoffs 10 out of the last 11 years and won the USport national title in 2016. She has twice been the national coach of the year and six times the coach of the year in Canada West.

Never one to turn away from challenges, Thomaidis became assistant coach of Canada’s national team in 2002 and was on the staff of the Canadian Olympic team in London in 2012. She was elevated to head coach in 2013, took the team to the Summer Olympic Games in Rio De Janiero in 2016, and is now aiming for a trip to Japan in 2020. The miracle is her management of time. Only once so far this season, she had to sacrifice a Canada West weekend because she’s occupied with the national team. She will have to do that once more in February when Canada participates in a pre-Olympic tournament.

Thomaidis was a three-time Ontario all-star at McMaster University, then played in the first division of a league in Greece for two years before getting a sample of coaching back at McMaster. “In the summer of 1998, I heard about a coaching job availability at the University of Saskatchewan,” said Thomaidis. “It was only through the urging of Therese Quigley, my coach, and the athletic director at McMaster that I gave it serious consideration. I applied on the last possible day “I didn’t know anyone in Saskatoon. I had no ideas of the team’s past performance and statistics. I flew into Saskatoon for an interview with Ross Wilson, who was the athletic director. I accepted the job.

“Ali Fairbrother was the only fifth-year player inherited. Jacquie Lavallee was also there. I soon found out that Saskatchewan women had special qualities in their toughness and work ethics. We got our butts kicked at a time when UBC and Victoria were the powerhouses in the league. But we began to build a basketball culture, players started to come to the campus and we all knew the expectations were going to be high. It also helped when Ross gathered some of the alumni, like Louise Humbert and Lara Farmer, who were encouraging and supportive.

“We had to work harder and play smarter. By the fourth season, we were in the Canada West playoffs.” By 2006, they were Canada West champions. By 2016, they won the national championship. That’s the year they defeated Ryerson University, 85-71, in the tournament at Fredericton, N.B. The team was led by fifth-year player Dalyce Emmerson of Prince Albert, and an acquisition from Ontario, Laura Dally, who became a Canada West player of the year.

Hopes are high again this year. They won 14 straight games before Christmas, taking six in the pre-season including games against Concordia, McGill and Windsor. They have won eight straight in conference play, beating Brandon, McEwan University in Edmonton, Regina and Thompson Rivers in Kamloops. In the New Year, they will face tougher Prairie opponents including Calgary, the conference co-leaders, Manitoba and Alberta. Playoffs begin in February and they hope the path leads to the national tournament in Ottawa from March 5-8.

Among the fifth-year players is Sabine Dukate, who is originally from Ventspils, Latvia. She came to the Huskies in what Thomaidis calls “a total fluke. We heard she wanted to come to North America, she sent me a video and I knew I needed to bring her to Saskatoon. She adapted to our culture and our different style of play and she has come so far as a playmaker, a rebounder and a leader.” Megan Ahlstrom, a guard, is a fifth-year player with a Calgary background and Team Canada credits.

Also selected out of the Calgary talent pool were Summer Masilkewich, often the team’s leading scorer and a member of Team Canada at the Commonwealth Games; Ahlstrom’s younger sister, Carly, a second-year guard; Erin Kehrig, a third-year forward; and Christy and Brianna Fehr, twin sisters in their fourth seasons.

Vera Crooks, a forward from the Evan Hardy Souls, is in her fifth season and the most experienced of the Saskatchewan talent. Also contributing are Libby Epoch, a guard from Moose Jaw; Janaya Brown, a forward from Warman; Katriana Philipenko, a guard from Holy Cross; Emma Engen, a guard from Walter Murray; and Kyla Shand, a forward from Holy Cross.

The other spots are filled by Claudia Lomba Viana, who made her way onto campus from Portugal through England, and Andrea Dodig, from Bolton, Ont. “In Claudia’s case, a colleague of mine was coaching in England, saw her playing in Leicester and told me that Claudia wanted to move to Canada,” said Thomaidis.

A good catch for the Huskies, too, is Claire Meadows, who was at Okanagan College in Kelowna when she became available. “She was very much in demand and chose to come to us,” said Thomaidis. “She comes with a good working knowledge of Canada’s talent as she is also coach of the national junior team.”

The staff also includes Fairbrother, now in her 16th year as an assistant coach and Lavallee, a player from 1996 until 2002, now in her 14th season. The Olympic dream for Thomaidis began in 2012 in London. “It was kind of a bonus for us to be there. Even for Rio, it took until the last day of qualifying before we nailed down a berth. “Rio was a fantastic experience. You get a little star-struck in the dining room. We’d see all these NBA players, representing the United States, walking past our table. One day, two tables away, was Michael Phelps, the swimming star.

“On the floor, we played well. We lost in the quarterfinals against France, after leading at the end of three quarters. We finished in that bunch from fifth to eighth. “I think back to that set of Games where Kia Nurse was a 19-year-old playing college basketball and she was a spark plug. Now with the full college experience at UConn, and a year as an all-star and champion with New York in the Women’s National Basketball Association, she has improved so dramatically.”

Canada was a survivor in a four-team pre-qualifying tournament in Edmonton, winning handily against Cuba and Dominican Republic, and beating Puerto Rico 84-80 in a good measuring-stick game. Now they go to a tournament in Belgium in February, where three of the four — Canada, Belgium, Sweden and Japan — will qualify, although Japan gets an outright ticket as the host Olympic country. In other international adventures, the Thomaidis-coached Canadians won gold at the 2015 Pan-American Games and gold at the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Women’s Americas Cup in 2017.

Whether it is coaching the Huskies or Canada, Thomaidis has some trademark goals. “We expect players to be great teammates, embrace challenges, be humble in victory and learn from defeat. We expect them to be grateful for the opportunities they’ve earned. We expect them to be positive role models and ambassadors. Most of all, we expect them to leave our programs a better basketball player and a better person than when they entered it.”

-Ned Powers