The Arrival of Adika Peter-McNeilly

After wrapping up his second season in Europe playing in Germany’s Basketball Bundesliga League (BBL) with the Mitteldeutscher BC, guard Adika Peter-McNeilly has arrived back home in Canada to play for the Edmonton Stingers.

Similar to many players in the Canadian Elite Basketball League, the opportunity it presented to home-grown talent to compete at a high level was all too irresistible to Peter-McNeilly. Now for the next few months, he’s glad to call Edmonton his temporary home.

“I’ve never been to Edmonton, why not just have a new experience?” Peter-McNeilly said. “I felt like this was a great opportunity for me to always be in the gym, keep playing and getting my in-game reps and propel me to the next level of where I want to be.”

This past season with Mittledeutscher, the six-foot-three guard out of Scarborough Ont., appeared in 20 games for the club averaging 6.6 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game.

He’s spent the last two years in Germany after a stellar university career at Ryerson University, which saw him lead the program to two OUA titles and three medals at the U SPORTS Final 8 tournament.

For Peter-McNeilly, life after Ryerson and the transition to becoming a pro athlete has been an absolute adventure that’s he’s been adapting to pretty comfortably.

“Being a professional athlete is different,” Peter-McNeilly said. “You have to take care of your body, you have to be mentally prepared, you have to wake up and it’s basically a grind for those months when you’re overseas.”

In a new time zone and country where most of the population speaks a completely different language, Peter-McNeilly says it’s allowed for him to become even closer to the guys on the roster more than ever before. And when he isn't at home watching some Netflix or playing some
PlayStation 4, he’s likely with his teammate's training or exploring the streets of Germany. “In the BBL, you’re allowed to have up to six foreigners,” Peter-McNeilly said. “There was a lot of Americans on the team I was able to communicate with and you just kind of build those
bonds with those teammates. Even some of the German athletes, they also speak English.” While playing 62 professional games in Germany, Peter-McNeilly has also been fortunate to have his name called to represent his country on the world stage.

This past February, he was part of the 12-man roster that helped the men’s senior national team qualify for this summer's FIBA World Cup.

Being no stranger to rocking the red and white, it’s how Stingers head coach Barnaby Craddock and Peter-McNeilly actually established a relationship back in 2015 at the FISU Games in South Korea.

“Every time you represent your country, you always want to keep in tabs with a lot of the players, and a lot of the coaching staff,” Peter-McNeilly said. “You just never know down the line what may happen and a perfect example is the Edmonton Stingers.”

The city of Edmonton, a place where Peter-McNeilly couldn’t predict himself ending up, is where him and Craddock find themselves reunited after four years, looking to expand on that short- stint in 2015.

Through eight games this season, the Stingers hold a 4-4 record, with all their wins coming at the Edmonton Expo Centre where they’ve dominated on home court.

With plenty of basketball left to be played, Peter-McNeilly is excited about what’s yet to come with this team, as he believes they have a real shot at contending for a title.

“Once we get our chemistry rolling, I think we’ll be real good,” Peter-McNeilly said. “We’ve been protecting home court, we just gotta steal some games on the road. For me, personally, I just want to go out there and give it my all and whatever happens leave it out on the court.”

Written by Libaan Osman