Rempel overcomes adversity to compete in 2014 Paralympics

Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 5:27 PM -

In my lifetime, I have been to two Olympic Games. Not to compete -- nacho eating still isn’t an official sport -- but to work in a broadcasting capacity.

I was fortunate enough to have been at the 2010 Games in Vancouver and then again the 2012 London Games. Both experiences were almost surreal and one of those things you don’t realize just how amazing the experience is until you’ve had time to sit back and reflect on it.

In my opinion, and based on my two experiences, the Games are something so completely in a league of its own. Not just because of the calibre of sport represented, but because of how the Games affect people – sporting and non-sporting fans alike.

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The way the Games can bring a nation together, the way they can elicit emotion, is just so. 

The tears that well up when one of your athletes wins a medal, or the athlete who struggled to compete finally realizes the dream of just being there. They motivate and inspire people to be the best they can be, athletically or otherwise.

To borrow a line from the website of Paralympian Kevin Rempel, "his sheer will and determination is a testament that behind all those dark clouds lies a rainbow, and if you can weather the storm, brighter days are still ahead."

As a one-time sports-turned-weather reporter, I couldn’t have said it any better.

The following story is about the 31-year-old Rempel, a Paralympic athlete who never had any interest in the Olympics, beyond watching it on television every couple of years, until a series of tragic events would change his life and his dreams.

Rempel loved riding his dirt bike and it was his dream to go pro one day and ride and jump in front of an audience. He would get that chance, but not before tragedy would strike his family.

NEXT PAGE: A FAMILY TORN BY TRAGEDY

Kevin Rempel is preparing to take on Sochi. Photo courtesy: Twitter

It was 2002, and Kevin with his dad Gerry were deer hunting. 

Gerry had scaled a tree to set up a deer stand - and it was from this look-out, some two stories above the ground that he fell. Gerry broke his back in the fall and was left a paraplegic. Life for Kevin’s father would never be the same, nor would it be for Kevin.

Four years after his father’s accident, Kevin realized his goal of turning pro and riding in front of an audience. Sadly and shockingly, just two weeks after reaching that goal, fate would take an ugly twist.  At only his second show and while practicing a stunt, Kevin fell off his bike from a height of nearly 30 feet. He plummeted to the ground, and like his father, fractured his back. But unlike his father, Kevin would learn to walk again.

His grit and determination saw him out of his wheelchair just one year after the accident.

At this point, you’re probably thinking this kid is pretty amazing. To see his dad suffer, then to endure the same fate but overcome the odds to walk again - incredible, right?  Sure, but while his story took a happy turn here, it wasn’t long until another life altering event would turn Kevin’s world upside down yet again.

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Not dealing well with his own situation, Gerry became depressed and addicted to gambling in the years following his accident. His wife, Shirley, would eventually leave him and shortly after that, Gerry took his own life.

Kevin could hardly believe what had happened – on top of all else he and his family had endured in the last six years, losing his father the way he did was just too much.  Kevin packed his bags and left Canada to visit his sister in Australia.

NEXT PAGE: KEVIN'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN

Time away from his life was the tonic Kevin needed. He returned from his trip with renewed determination and focus. He started to look for a sport he could truly participate in and thought wheelchair basketball might be a good fit. It was during this search that he discovered sledge hockey though and instantly took a shining to it.

That was 2008.

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By 2010, he joined the Canadian National Sledge Hockey team and a new dream was born – to represent Canada at the Paralympic Games. 

The world’s biggest sporting event that was barely on his radar in the past was now all Kevin saw. The same grit and determination that got him out of that wheelchair all those years ago, the same will that drove him to put all the bad behind him, was now helping him make his dream a reality.

In the two years since joining the national team, Kevin has helped Canada to one bronze, two silver and five gold in international competition, including most recently winning the 2013 World Championship in Goyan, South Korea.  He and his teammates are now in Sochi, where they hope some of Kevin’s resiliency will rub off on the team and they can bounce back from their fourth place finish in Vancouver at the 2010 Games.

Good luck Kevin, and go Canada go!