It wouldn't be inaccurate to call Shona Thorburn Basketball Canada's Bionic Women.

It could be because the Hamilton native is still going strong nearly two decades after first representing her country internationally, or because she's generally regarded as the toughest player on Team Canada. Shona's always been, figuratively speaking, a superhero.

But these days she's literally not entirely human.

Shona is playing with a plate in her leg, the result of surgery after she suffered a displaced fracture of her fibula during the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship in Edmonton.

Her newest power? Being able to tell the temperature.

"Cold, rainy weather? Not a fan," says Shona, who spent the 2015-16 season playing pro with Nantes in France and tested out her steel-plated leg in the toughest of conditions, on the court and off.

"We actually played in Serbia this year and it was minus-30, minus-40 outside, and it was painful."

Of course, if there's anyone who can play through pain, it would be the five-foot-ten guard, who was back in action with Nantes not long after breaking her fibula last August.

"I think mentally, like every athlete, I prepared to come back sooner than I was ready to," says Shona, who played 30 games with Nantes in 2015-16, averaging 5.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 3.2 assists.

"So in that regard I started to come back and I wasn't ready, but I did anyway. It wasn't until two months after that that I started to feel normal and my season in Europe just got better and better because I started to feel better."

Forget about superpowers, what has made Shona a veteran of more than 100 games with the SWNT who is now headed to her second Olympic Games is the most human of qualities: Passion, hard work ,and dedication.

"If you have passion, you're diving on the floor, you're getting every 50/50 ball, you're sacrificing yourself for the better of the team," she explains. "If you have hard work, those little things show up in games. And the same with dedication. You know people who have worked on their game to become better just to play for Canada in the summer."

Shona doesn't get the plate out until the end of August, just after the Rio Games wrap up.

Of course, by that time, she might have added some more metal.

The kind that hangs around your neck

by. Brian Swane

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