LETHBRIDGE, Alta. –
For Vika Kovalevska and Vlada Hozalova, the squeak of their shoes and the pop of the ball on the pitch feels wonderfully normal.
Basketball offers a brief refuge from the constant tension they feel over what is happening back home in Ukraine.
Hoops also helps them in their new life in Alberta where they play basketball for the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns.
“Basketball helps take your mind off everything that’s been going on around you,” Kovalevska told The Canadian Press.
“I just try to focus on training, turn off my brain and immerse myself in the world of a fast and dynamic game where there is no time to think about anything else.”
Kovalevska and Hozalova are friends who have played internationally for Ukraine women’s U20 team. The two guards arrived in Canada in May.
Kovalevska, 23, has enrolled in Lethbridge for a business degree and will play in Canada West this season.
Hozalova, 24, must complete an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) at the university before she is academically eligible to play conference games.
She can still practice with the pronghorns and play exhibition games.
Hozalova wrote her responses in an email to The Canadian Press.
Its southeastern city of Berdyansk, now under Russian occupation, was bombed in February. Hosalova got out as a humanitarian corridor opened.
She still had to pass through several Russian checkpoints and said she endured a tense interrogation at one.
“Those were the scariest moments of my life. I thought for a second maybe I wouldn’t make it out alive,” Hozalova wrote.
“My everyday life starts with watching the news and unfortunately Russia recently announced that my city is already (in) Russia. I am homeless and have nowhere to go.”
Hozalova’s mother and her 17-year-old brother fled to Germany. Kovalevska’s parents and brother live in a relatively safe area in north-western Ukraine, but insecurity weighs on her.
“I’m worried about my family. I feel scared,” Kovalevska said.
“I’m nervous because every day a lot of bombs land on Ukrainian territory. Innocent people are dying. You can’t predict which city it will be today or tomorrow.”
They haven’t heard from their friend Sergei, who serves in the Ukrainian army, for six months.
Hosalova says he was captured defending the Mariupol steel mill.
“We hope he’s alive,” said Kovalevska.
To escape the conflict, the two women obtained their Canadian visas. They used Facebook to look for volunteers in Canada who could help them.
When they found out they were headed to Calgary, their contacts there sent basketball inquiry emails to Alberta universities and colleges.
Pronghorns coach Dave Waknuk responded immediately and enthusiastically.
Within days of their arrival, Hozalova and Kovalevska toured the Lethbridge campus and met with potential teammates and university administration.
It was fortunate that the university had already set up an emergency scholarship for current and new Ukrainian students.
“When the conflict took place we had some students who were already studying here at the University of Lethbridge,” said International Managing Director Paul Pan. “Because of the conflict, they could not get money from home to support themselves. They worried that their parents would be unemployed because of the conflict.
“We were able to offer four scholarships to returnees and four scholarships to first-year students.”
Kovalevska and Hozalova were approved for the scholarships, which cover two semesters of campus life and tuition.
“It wasn’t set up specifically for those two,” Pan said. “The timing was just perfect for her.”
Before moving to Lethbridge, the two women stayed with a Russian woman in Calgary.
“She’s lived in Calgary for 10 years,” Kovalevska said. “A lot of volunteers here, Russians who have lived in Canada for many years, just really tried to help the Ukrainians.”
Kovalevska and Hozalova played in Ukraine’s eight-team professional women’s basketball circuit.
U-Sport rules allow three international players in a squad. Under basketball eligibility rules, schools can place players with professional experience on the women’s roster but not on their men’s teams.
“I don’t know why that is, but the rules for professional players are different for women than for men,” Waknuk said.
“Both players have such a high basketball IQ. They understand the game because of their experience of playing at a high level. Both are very competitive, very skillful.
“It took her conditioning a while to catch up with her, but when she did, the skills, the knowledge, and the things that separate them came out.”
Off the field, the two women adjust to life as college students in southern Alberta.
“Thanks to sport I’m here now and basketball is a part of my life,” Hozalova wrote. “I am grateful to everyone close to me who supports me and allows me to do what I love and be safe.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on October 4, 2022.