Laurentian teams back in action after COVID-19, but playing in the shadow of the university's financial crisis

Jordan Katchunga has a big smile as he comes off the court after practice.

While the point guard sometimes feels like the team is still shaking some of the rust off after losing an entire season to COVID-19, he's loving being back in action with the Laurentian University men's basketball team.

The Ottawa native spent two years playing at a junior college in California, but feeling uneasy with police violence against black people in the United States, he decided to transfer to northern Ontario's largest university. 

But then Katchunga started reading stories about how the Sudbury school was "bankrupt" before he even had put on a Voyageur jersey. 

"It was really crazy. Everybody's like 'Yo, what's happening to your school?'" says the third-year business administration student. 

"It was stressful seeing if I have to transfer again, if my program's going to get cut."

But Katchunga says now he's focused on his studies and on winning basketball games and doesn't think much about the ongoing insolvency process.

"We didn't really get answers of what really happened, but just worry about what we can control. We can't control that. That's beyond us," he says. 

"We really can't put too much focus on that. Just move on."

One of the reasons Katchunga chose Laurentian was to work with head coach Shawn Swords, who starred at point guard for the Voyageurs in the 1990s and went on to represent Canada in the Olympics.

Swords says he isn't distracted by the insolvency, but does find it tough to hear some people say they're not proud to be associated with Laurentian any more. 

"It hurts the heart," he says. 

"I never came here for Laurentian quote unquote. People see it as a brand and a corporation, but when you're in it, it's not that. It's who you interact with on a daily basis."

Peter Hellstrom, the director of athletics and recreation, says he's just happy to hear the sounds coming from the Ben Avery Gymnasium next to his office compared with the "zombieland" he worked in during the first year of the pandemic.

He says he is still missing the sounds and smells from the Jeno Tihanyi Olympic Gold Pool, which sits dark and quiet, mothballed for two years now.

Hellstrom says he gets asked "every second day" about the situation with the "community icon."

"And hopefully one day we'll come to a resolution and see if we can get that smell and sound back," he says. 

"I'm confident that the university is moving in the right direction and we just have to be patient."

The insolvency also saw the swimming and hockey teams dropped from the roster of Voyageur teams

"It's just another card we've been dealt and we have to adapt and change," says Hellstrom, who's been with the athletics department for 28 years. 

"We are one of the faces of the university."

Hellstrom says recruiting athletes might be a "little more difficult" this year with the school still going through the insolvency process, but he says there are still lots of reasons to play and learn at Laurentian. 

"We've marketed the university the best we can all across Ontario and Canada. Is it is a problem? Not with the student athletes. You talk to any student athlete, they're still damn proud to wear the colours," he says. 

"What we have left here is still damn good."