One on One with Markus - Shawn Swords

When Shawn Swords was in his final year of high school in Ottawa, he had to make an important decision: hockey or basketball.

He excelled at both and was in talks to go play in the Quebec major-junior hockey league. Then, he got into a car accident.

"I broke my collarbone," he said. "So I was out for six weeks from all sports."

His hockey dream was put on hold. He did fully recover and started to get calls a year later to go play hockey in Quebec.

"I kind of lost the fire I guess at some point," he said. "I said you know what? I think I'm just going to go play basketball."

He ended up attending Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont. and playing as a Voyageur on the men's team. Now, he's the coach of the team.

Going international

The path to get back to the university he started with has taken him all over the world.

While playing on the national team during his time at Laurentian, he met a player who had played in Europe. Swords ended up doing the same.

That decision lead him to play and train in a number of countries, including England, Switzerland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Finland.

"France, I kind of had base for French and I picked it up a little bit easier," he said.

"I actually took Italian here at Laurentian so I could understand a little bit in Italy but still not great. Finland was really hard."

In 2000, he managed to make the national men's basketball team and competed at the Olympics in Sydney.

"It was amazing. I get goose bumps now just thinking about it," he said.

"Going into the opening ceremonies, walking in the stadium with your teammates, that's huge."

Back to Canada

Giving up playing the sport wasn't an easy decision for Sword. He says he started getting injured on the court.

"Mentally, I started to wear down just a little bit more," he said. 

"Not that it was becoming a job [as] you always know it's a job. But it was harder to get up for games and harder to get ready to play. I could sense that I really wasn't fully there as a player as much anymore."

Eventually, he got a job to be the coach at Laurentian.

He says overall, there are more good days than bad. He says one dark period was when several players were suspended for hazing in 2016.

"I think there was a lot of untruths that went on," he said.

"I think there was some truths that were told [but] a lot of untruths that were told as well."

Says he is no stranger to hazing as he experienced it when he was a player in the 90s.

"I've been through it and I don't like it," he said. "It bothers me. It bothered me as a player, when I was a hockey player. I knew it was part of the culture and didn't like it."

Since being coach, he hasn't been able to lead his team to winning the championship.

"That's the ultimate goal," he said. "But if you look at it, there's only one team a year that does that.