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All of Canada’s games will now be available for audiences across the country to watch live on cbc.ca/tokyo2020.

“To be able to tell my family back home that they can watch me play and compete in my second Paralympics as team captain is unreal. Absolutely unreal,” Danielle Eliis told CBC Sports.

“I’m so excited to be here and I really want to share this sport with the world.”

Ellis, from White Rock, B.C., was part of the team that finished seventh in Rio. Canada is ranked fifth in the world going into the Tokyo Paralympics.

“We’re feeling excited. The team is feeling good. We start every day with gratitude and we’re ready,” Ellis, who is the captain, said.

“It was a long 16 months away from competition. We’ve worked really hard. Have done a lot of zoom meetings as a team. We’re all over the country. So it wasn’t easy to get together and train.”

Awareness ‘means everything’

Heidi Peters, from Neerlandia, Alta., was also part of the Rio team. The team’s preliminary games were not broadcast during those Paralympics.

“It’s so important that people see our sport. We know how important it is,” she told CBC Sports.

Julie Kozun, from Melfort, Sask., is making her Paralympic debut — bright-eyed with the prospect of wearing the maple leaf on this grand athletic stage and thrilled her family, friends and home province will get to see every game.

“I have a whole community at home behind me. Melfort. It’s known that I’m here,” Kozun said.

“I think Saskatchewan will be very happy. I have a really big family so there are a lot of people who want to watch. They’ve been following this team since I joined it. More people need to know about this. It needs to be shown and known that it’s out there. This can help people.”