Ottawa Sportspage

HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 4, #4 February 2015

The loud cracks of gunfire echo through the woods in Gatineau Park. Hunting may be banned, but shooting is no problem as long as you’ve got a pair of skis with you as well.

Big snowflakes fall gently as half-a-dozen young biathletes prac-tice their marksmanship at the Camp Fortune shooting range, hidden away past the ski hill and a few steps down from the chalet that serves as a sum-mertime zip-lining operation.

By the end of the session, it’s al-most a blizzard, the blanket of snow acting as a nightmare for the shoot-ers, making it difficult for them to see their target, let alone hit it.

But trying conditions is part of the package for the members of Team Ontario taking part in the training camp in advance of the 2015 Canada Winter Games, an Olympic-style multi-sport competition held every 4 years featuring teams from each Ca-nadian province.

This edition marks a big moment for the area’s leading biathlon pro-gram. Half of 8-member Team Ontario is made up of Ottawa biathletes, brewed by the Chelsea Nordiq club.

“It’s huge,” says Alex Dumond, Biathlon Ontario’s president and a Chelsea Nordiq coach. “It makes a big impact and it sends a message that what

we’re doing in the region is working.”Boosted by an influx of exper-

ienced coaches to teach different levels – such as Team Ontario leaders Dave Bradley and Amy Ford – the Chelsea Nordiq biathlon program has seen substantial growth in recent years. With over 60 youth biathletes, it’s the largest club for participation

in Quebec, and has become the main centre for Ontario’s biathletes (even if it’s in a neighbouring province).

The local Army Cadets program is another strong feeder; 3 of the 4 Ot-tawa Canada Games representatives got their start there.

“I had no idea what biathlon was,” recalls 17-year-old Jason Lawton, now 5 years into his career. “I enjoy it because it’s a combination of two sports, and two extremes. You have to have endurance and at the same time, you have to be able to control that high heart rate and breathing to be able to shoot the bullet in a very precise manner.

“It’s such an amazing sport.”Jordyn Leighton also didn’t know

the sport existed the first time it was mentioned to her.

“I could never see myself shoot-ing until I started biathlon,” notes Leighton, who had to overcome her fear of loud noises at first.

BIATHLON continues on p.8

By Dan Plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

SCRUBBS SHINE IN SPOTLIGHT

P. 1-9

P. 13 & 14

From hockey & speed skating to wheel-chair basketball & table tennis, we profile Ottawa’s Canada Winter Games crew.

Led by Ravens Philip & Thomas Scrubb, the Ottawa Sports Awards Male Team of the Year won the Capital Hoops Classic.

COOKIN’ UP A SILVER CLIMAX

P. 11Ottawa skier Dustin Cook put years of struggles in international competition behind him with a breakout world silver.

Young Gun

2 Locations Superdome (Gloucester) & Ben Franklin Dome (Nepean)

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A year younger than usually permitted, rising biathlete Jordyn Leighton was granted an exemption to take part in the Canada Winter Games. The 16-year-old is one of around 3 dozen Ottawa athletes set to compete at the Feb. 13 to Mar. 1 national youth multi-sport event in Prince George, B.C.

4 local Canada Winter Games athletes show capital’s emergence as province’s biathlon hub

JASON LAWTON

SPORT: BIATHLONAGE: 18CLUB: CHELSEA NORDIQ

JORDYN LEIGHTON


OTTAWA CANADA GAMES

at the

2

Contact [email protected]

Best of luck to all of our Ottawa Canada Winter

Councillor | Rideau-Goulbourn

Sc ttMoffatt

Games athletes!

The Canada GamesCouncil and Prince GeorgeHost Society are proudto celebrate 2015 as the“Year of Sport” in Canada!

Whether you are an athleteor a fan, sport unites allCanadians. From localplaygrounds to professionalsports franchises, sport isvital to the cultural fabricof our nation.

Le Conseil des Jeux duCanada et la Société hôtessede Prince George sont fiersde célébrer l’Année du Sportau Canada en 2015.

Que vous soyez athlète ouamateur, le sport rassembletous les Canadiens. Desterrains de jeu commu-nautaires aux équipesprofessionnelles, le sportfait partie du tissu culturelde notre société.

Inspiring Dreams andBuilding Champions

Du rêve au champion

Celebrate sport. Celebrate Canada.

Célébrons le sport. Célébrons le Canada.

canadagames.ca #canadagames

jeuxducanada.ca#jeuxducanada

OTTAWA AT THE CANADA WINTER GAMES

If you come across an Ottawa athlete headed to the 2015 Canada Winter Games, odds are they’ll be wearing a Team Ontario ringette jacket.

With six players (and three coaches), ringette is the sport with the greatest number of local representatives. Sydney Catlin, Jenna van Koppen, Molly Lewis, Sarah-Lynne Bé-gin, Nia King and Megan McGuire will all play for Ontario in Prince George, while Gloucester Devils National Ringette League player/coach Colleen Hagan will call the shots behind the bench, assisted by Ottawa Ice NRL players Car-rie Lugg and Jennifer Hartley.

They’re a tight-knit bunch who have played together and against one another throughout their careers locally. Catlin, Bégin, van Koppen and Lewis were all part of the Nepean Ravens’ celebrated Belle ‘AA’ team that won the 2013 Canadian title and represented their country at the Under-19 World Championship, while King and McGuire joined the quartet on the 2014 Ontario Winter Games-champion Eastern Ontario ‘AAA’ team.

It’s a big asset that a third of Ontario’s 18-player roster share such a strong history to-gether and are familiar with one another, coach Hagan underlines.

“Our team comes together every month or so, and every time there’s that little hump you have to get over and get everyone on the same page again,” highlights Hagan, a past Canada Winter Games gold medallist herself. “The

more our players have an opportunity to play together away from Team Ontario, the easier the transition is when they come together.”

This season, most are playing on different club teams, but it their past chemistry holds strong when they reconnect.

“We all know how each other play,” Bégin echoes. “We know each other really well on the ice, so it really does help.”

The six players’ camaraderie has quickly spread throughout the Team Ontario lineup. One part of that comes from St. Clements player Syndey Nosal, and the spirit animals.

“It’s kind of a cute bonding thing that we have,” Bégin explains. “In our first training camp, Syd started giving us all animal names, kind of joking around. It started out with just a few players, and then she started giving one to everybody. Even our coaches have them.”

With lions, ostriches, flying squirrels and T-Rexs to choose from, Hagan believes her lineup has the potential to be a golden mix.

“We are going there to win,” indicates the 33-year-old from Manotick. “We want our play-ers to have a competitive experience and to stand up and shine there on that stage. We have great speed, great offence, great goaltending and solid defence. Things are looking really good, we just need to put it all together on ice.”

A ringette player since age 6, Sarah-Lynne Bégin is a notorious sniper who played the hero’s role in her team’s 2013 Canadian title win, scor-ing 4 2nd-half goals to lift the Ravens from a 3-1 deficit against Winnipeg. She’s now an offensive for the NRL Ice, averaging almost 2 points per game in her rookie season for the defending na-tional champs. Her spirit animal is an otter.

University of Guelph student Nia King is now the enemy of Ottawa-area athletes in NRL play, dressing for the 19-0-1 Cambridge Turbos, the country’s #1-ranked team.

King’s reason for joining ringette is differ-ent than most others: when King was in kinder-garten, she attended a skating party and the girl who won the “guess the number of jellybeans in the jar” contest wasn’t there to accept her win-nings. Curious, King asked her dad where the girl was. The answer? Ringette. King asked to sign up that night. Her spirit animal is the King of the jungle: a lion.

At first, Sydney Catlin was stuck in ringette because her friends played, with a desire to switch to hockey after a year, but she wound up loving the sport so much that she decided to stick with it. The Carleton Place native now travels around 5 hours most weekends from her new home base at Canadore College in North Bay to play goalie for the Gatineau Fusion in the NRL. Her spirit animal is a snake.

Richmond native Megan McGuire has dressed for many teams locally throughout her career, including Goulbourn, West Ottawa and Ottawa. The University of Guelph student now plays for Richmond Hill in the NRL.The forward says she’s proud to represent not only her province, but also her sport, at the Canada Games. Her spirit animal is a flying squirrel.

Long-time ringette teammates & friends share GamesBy Josh Bell

photo: dan plouffe

Jenna van

Koppen

SARAH- LYNNE BÉGINSPORT:

RINGETTEAGE: 19

NIA KING

SPORT: RINGETTE

AGE: 19

SYDNEY CATLIN

SPORT: RINGETTE

AGE: 19

MEGAN MCGUIRE

SPORT: RINGETTE

AGE: 19

RINGETTE continues on p.5

They’ve all been on skis just about as long as they’ve been able to stand up, but the three local Team Ontario alpine ski members fully understand that their Canada Winter Games runs won’t be any old trip down the hill.

“This is going to be the most important event of my life so far,” underlines Nicole Clarke, set to represent Ontario along-side Ottawa residents Hunter Watson and Alexandra Marta at the Feb. 13-Mar. 1 Games in Prince George, B.C.

“Honestly, I didn’t think I was going to make it,” adds the 15-year-old who qualified for the Games through time tri-als at an Alpine Ontario camp. “There were so many other ski-ers there, and they were good. We had a ski off, and I just went out there and wanted to do the best I could.”

Skiing is a part of her fam-ily’s tradition, notes Clarke, who began skiing at 2-and-a-half years old, racing at age 9, and then winning local events such as the 2014 Art Tommy Me-morial Race at Calabogie Peaks.

Watson owns a very sim-ilar background, skiing since a young age and racing competit-ively at age 12.

“I’ve played other sports, but there’s nothing quite like this,” Watson highlights. “You go fast down the hills, and the places you get to visit – there are so many great experiences.”

Both Clarke and Watson are part of John McCrae Second-ary School’s high-performance athlete program, are members of the National Capital Outa-ouais Ski Team and call Camp Fortune their home hill. And they’re equally thrilled to take

part in the Canada Games.“This is the biggest and most

important race I will be part of,” echoes Watson, the 2013 Whistler Cup under-14 bronze medallist and the top Canadian at last year’s Can-Am compet-ition in Mont Tremblant. “I’m nervous, but I’m feeling good. It’s going to be really fun.”

Marta also calls the Canada Games the pinnacle of her ski-ing career thus far.

“It shows you that you have potential and you are good at what you do,” notes the 19-year-old who will compete in the para-alpine competition. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Born with cerebral palsy, Marta started skiing when she was 6 years old at Camp

Fortune, and in 2011 joined a “black diamond” program to improve her abilities, but soon discovered a desire to race.

“There was never any mo-ment where I said I couldn’t do this or couldn’t do that,” reflects the Canterbury High School grad. “You go out there and do what you do best, and this is what I do best. I don’t know anything different.”

In 2012, Marta was invited to ski and meet with the na-tional para-alpine team for a week and it was during that time she realized just how much she could achieve if she continued to work harder. She’s now got her sights set on making that team and chas-ing a spot at the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Games.

“I will continue to dedicate myself and work hard,” Marta pledges. “I want these oppor-tunities and I am going to work towards them.”

Glebe Collegiate Institute student Quentin Roy-Foster will also be competing at the Canada Winter Games. The 6’1” 15-year-old – who’s ad-ded a full foot to his frame in the past 2 years – skis out of Mont-Ste-Marie and will rep-resent Team Quebec.

Team Ontario also includes para-alpine coach Blake Mac-Millan and NCO’s Martin Rog (technical support).

3

Hon. Bob ChiarelliOttawa West–Nepean

Ottawa-Ouest–Nepean613-721-8075

John FraserOttawa South Ottawa-Sud

613-736-9573

Marie-France LalondeOttawa–Orléans

613-834-8679

Hon. Yasir NaqviOttawa Centre Ottawa-Centre 613-722-6414

Hon. Madeleine MeilleurOttawa–Vanier613-744-4484

The Ontario Liberal Caucus:Le groupe parlementaire libéral de l’Ontario :

Proud of our Ottawa athletes at the 2015 Canada Winter Games!Fiers de nos athlètes d’Ottawa participant aux Jeux d’hiver du Canada de 2015!

OTTAWA AT THE CANADA WINTER GAMESOttawa sends 4 alpine skiers to Canada Winter Games

By Anil Jhalli Hunter Watson

photo provided

HUNTER WATSON

SPORT: ALPINE SKIINGAGE: 15CLUB: CAMP FORTUNE

ALEX MARTA


NICOLE CLARKE


QUINTON ROY-FOSTER

SPORT: ALPINE SKIINGAGE: 15CLUB: MONT-STE-MARIE

4 OTTAWA AT THE CANADA WINTER GAMES

The two local representatives in gymnastics disciplines both head into Prince George flying high after reach-ing new heights at major competi-tions in advance of the Canada Winter Games.

Benjamin Tyo is set to take in trampoline’s Canada Games debut, fresh off an appearance at Decem-ber’s U19 World Championships in Daytona Beach.

“It was a lot of fun,” recounts the 20th-place finisher. “It was my best performance all year, so I was very happy with it.”

After catching a peek of the world’s top senior-level athletes in action, Tyo left the event feeling highly motivated. He also felt that he could have done better with a bit more practice.

Since then, Tyo has increased amount he trains to twice a day, five days per week, which adds up to around 40 hours per week in total.

The Grade 12 student is registered at Notre-Dame Catholic High School, but is home-schooled, completing his work early in the day before heading off to his Unigym club in Gatineau. It’s all about living the athlete life-style for Tyo, who ensures he’s eating the right foods at the right time.

“It’s my main priority,” he under-lines, emphasizing the key role par-

ental support plays in his success. “I always tell people, when I go to the gym, that’s where I have my fun. If I’m at home in the morning and I’m not having a good day, I’ll go to the gym and all of sudden the day’s a lot more fun. I’ll be dancing and singing with my friends.”

Recently named Ottawa Sports

Awards trampolinist of the year – his younger brothers Vincent and Francis were a couple of his main challengers for the honour – Tyo hopes to con-tinue his hot streak in Prince George.

“I’m obviously going for the gold – who doesn’t?” smiles the 17-year-old. “But I’m just hoping to do as well as I can.”

ZAKUTNEY EYES PAN AM GAMESMen’s artistic gymnast Sam Zak-

utney is also coming off a career-best performance heading into Canada Games. The National Capital Boys Gymnastics Academy athlete repeated as junior high-performance all-around champion at the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 Elite Canada meet in Trois-Rivières.

“I did the best routines under pressure I’ve ever done and it felt amazing,” says Zakutney, who also scored event finals victories in victor-ies on floor, high bar and vault. “Since last year I’ve added a lot more diffi-culty to my routines, so my execu-tion dropped a little at the beginning, and adding all these skills made my routines a lot longer, so I’d always get exhausted near the end. But by

working on it, I ended up pulling off everything pretty well.”

Zakutney feels “really excited” to go to Canada Games, which will be his first multi-sport event, although he’d like to experience a second one later this year on a considerably big-ger stage. The 16-year-old is planning to move up to the senior category for May’s Canadian Championships in Gatineau in hopes of earning a place on the home team for the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games.

“It’s kind of a big jump,” acknow-ledges Zakutney, who will be joined by National Capital coach Oleksandr Zavadych at Canada Games. “But I’ve been making a lot of progress with all of my routines, so me and my coach really believe that I can pull it off.”

Gymnastics athletes seek global stageBy Dan Plouffe Sam

Zakutney

BENJAMIN TYO

SPORT: TRAMPOLINEAGE: 17CLUB: UNIGYM

Able-bodied wheelchair bball player boosts sport

Playing wheelchair bas-ketball doesn’t necessarily mean you are in a wheelchair all the time. That’s the case for Canada Winter Games participant Émilie Mondor, who was introduced to the sport while playing “stand-up” basketball.

“My coach also coached the Ottawa wheelchair basket-ball team,” explains Mondor, who’s been playing competit-ively for five years. “Once a year, he’d bring them to play with us and after about six years of that, I actually got in-vited to come play with them in their recreational league just for fun, because I liked it so much. Then I got hooked.”

Mondor isn’t the only able-bodied player in the league, and is far from a rar-ity nationally either. A major reason Canada rose into a powerhouse on the interna-tional stage is because its sport leaders embraced wheelchair basketball as its own sport, not basketball for people with disabilities. By opening up

the game to a larger player pool, it helps the Canadian para-athletes raise their game by facing strong competition domestically.

Without a disability, Mondor couldn’t represent Canada in international com-petition, however.

“You can only go to a certain level,” notes the 21-year-old Ottawa Phoenix player, one of three women on Ontario’s mixed team for Canada Games. “You can’t be on the national team, but you can play provincial.”

That hasn’t stopped her from jumping into the sport fully. Mondor serves on the Ottawa Carleton Wheelchair Sports Association board of directors and practices nearly every weekend, about 5-6 hours each day.

That commitment has become more difficult to manage since she began her agricultural studies at the Uni-versity of Guelph’s campus in Alfred and Plantagenet.

Mondor isn’t the only member of Team Ontario who endures a long commute

to be involved in the sport. Sam Graham, 20, frequently makes the round trip of nearly three hours from his home in Beachburg to play and prac-tice with Ottawa teams.

But the dedication is worthwhile when it means getting to play in an event like the Canada Games, Mondor maintains.

“I’m looking forward to the travelling, seeing Prince George, playing under pres-sure,” she says. “It’s all going to be amazing.”

photo: steve kingsman

ÉMILIE MONDOR

SPORT: WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALLAGE: 21CLUB: OTTAWA CAR-LETON WHEELCHAIR SPORTS ASSOCIATION

SAMUEL ZAKUTNEY

SPORT: ARTISTIC GYMNASTICSAGE: 16CLUB: NATIONAL CAPITAL

By Josh Bell

When she found out she wasn’t allowed to punch her opponent, Florence Grenapin was all set to quit judo as soon as she started at age 8.

“I wanted to do karate to learn how to kick and punch,” reflects the 16-year-old. “There was judo as an extracurricular activity at school, so I took that. And then I found out there are no punches in judo. But I liked it, and I stuck with it.”

Now Grenapin is set to compete in the Canada Winter Games as one of top contenders for the medals.

“I’m really excited. It’s the first time I’m do-ing something big like this,” highlights the Ly-cée Claudel high school student. “There’s a team competition and I’ve never done that before, so I’m looking forward to that. I think it will be really fun. Also, getting to see all the other sports that are there.”

Grenapin enters the under-19 competition with tons of confidence, fresh off a solid appear-ance at January’s Elite 8 Invitational National Championships in Montreal, where she tied for 3rd.

“I want the podium,” indicates the 52 kg competitor. “I know the athletes who will be there and I think a good performance will be second place.”

The toughest challenge Grenapin has had to overcome on her journey to the Canada Games was three years ago when she suffered a ser-ious knee injury.““I had to have surgery and when I came back, the other girls were getting

better, and I was trying to recuperate,” recounts Grenapin, whose knee is still bothered by some movements. “That was really hard and it took a long time to catch up.”

Training with a number of local groups, in-cluding RA Centre, Lycée-Claudel and Ottawa Judo Club, Grenapin is keen to push forward in the judo world.

“I’d like to go into tournaments in Europe and world tours. That’s my goal in the next couple years,” signals Grenapin, who will have Ontario judo team manager Shu-Tai Cheng of Ottawa with her in Prince George. “And if pos-sible, I’d like to go to the Olympics.”

By Josh Bell

Judoka pulls no punches: she’s after the podiumFLORENCE GRENAPIN

SPORT: JUDOAGE: 16CLUB: RA CENTRE / LYCÉE CLAUDEL

5

While most Team Ontario ath-letes were taking part in training camps leading up to the Canada Winter Games, Ottawa’s three bad-minton representatives were instead engaged in electrifying, high-stakes competition.

The leader of the local trio, Andrew D’Souza, will enter the Canada Games as the undisputed favourite. having earned his first Canadian senior title at the Feb. 4-7 Yonex Canadian National Badmin-ton Championships in Gatineau.

The victory means that the Canada Games will more than likely be the 20-year-old’s first of two mul-ti-sport competitions in 2015.

Calling it a “mind-blowing” experience, D’Souza participated in the Commonwealth Games last summer and is now set up well to represent Canada again at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games

later this year.The championship match was

essentially a “do-or-die” for Pan Am selection, “even though he isn’t yet a shoo-in” since team selection also takes into consideration national elite series and international com-petition, explains D’Souza’s coach Andrew Dabeka of the RA Centre.

It was an all-RA men’s singles national final thanks to Joseph Ro-gers’ 21-16, 22-20 semi-final upset of the tournament’s top seed and de-fending champion, Martin Giuffre.

“We’ve always had a rich his-tory of success coming out of the RA, with Olympians and national team members at World Champi-onships, Pan Ams and Common-wealth Games,” Dabeka details. “It’s a tougher sell when badminton doesn’t have as much funding as it used to, so of course we’re thrilled that our athletes are excelling.”

The appearance in the cham-pionship game represented a big breakthrough for 26-year-old Rogers – who will not be part of the under-23 Canada Games event – since his last appearance in a national final was in 2006 when he won the junior title.

“We were all ecstatic for Joseph,” signals Dabeka, who won his 5th of 6 career senior titles in 2006 as well. “It’s been a few years on the adult circuit where he’s had close matches, but this is the furthest he progressed since he won the ju-nior nationals many moons ago.”

London 2012 Olympian Alex Bruce, who setup shop at the RA Centre this season, also enjoyed a very successful nationals, winning both the women’s and mixed doubles events to all-but officially punch her ticket to the Pan Am Games.

It was also a big performance for Canada Games-bound Qufei Chen, who’d previously won the Ontario University Athletics championship in her rookie season for the Univer-sity of Ottawa. The 20-year-old pre-vailed 19-21, 21-12, 21-19 in one of the matches of the tournament in the quarter-finals to reach the medal round, where she ended up 4th.

“I think this was a breakthrough for her – the breakthrough she needed as a top young athlete on the national stage,” indicates Dabeka.

The third Ottawa native headed to Canada Games made an earlier exit at nationals. Sergiy Shatenko, who’s known some of his greatest past success in doubles competition but only entered the men’s singles event in Gatineau, won his opening match before falling in the second round. The 22-year-old views the Canada Games as his time to shine.

“As far as tournaments I’ve been in, this is the biggest one,” states Shatenko, who will make a stop at the University of British Columbia for a medical school interview be-fore heading up to Prince George.

“Of course it’s going to be a thrill just to be there, but I’m look-ing to try to win the team event and hopefully get a couple of medals,” he adds. “Ottawa has a pretty good history in badminton, the RA Centre is one of the best clubs I know of, and with (Dabeka) coaching us, we have a really good group.”

Dabeka, also the coach for Team Ontario badminton at the Canada Games, would like to see a repeat of local representation in the medal rounds in B.C.

“I’m just hoping everyone pro-gresses as far as they can,” he says. “It would be just awesome if an Ontario athlete was playing another Ontario athlete in the finals.”

New national champ leads badminton team

By Alex Quevillon

Andrew D’Souza


--By Colin Walker, SportsCanA big problem many people have when

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3. BRING A WATER BOTTLEMake sure you have your own water bottle

with you and ensure it is full. Avoid waiting in line at the water fountain. I know that when you go to the fountain, it gives you extra rest. Make it you goal only to go once halfway through your workout to refill your bottle.

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Obvious, but difficult to do!

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Leg Extensions) hit only one muscle group at a time. It’s OK to do a few isolation moves toward the end of your workout – ideally in superset fashion – but the bulk of your workout should feature compound lifts and supersets.

8. SAVE CARDIO FOR ANOTHER DAYIf cardio has been part of your routine but

you only have an hour to train, focus on your strength-work first. A long cardio session can cut into your strength gains, yielding fewer benefits to your athletic performance. Just save cardio for a day when you’re not lifting.

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OTTAWA’S LTAD LEADERS FOR OVER 10 YEARSNUTRITION - STRENGTH & CONDITIONING - MENTAL TRAINING

VIDEO ANALYSIS - ATHLETIC THERAPY

SPORTSCAN.CA

Workout Efficiency: Time-Wasters Be Gone!


QUFEI CHEN

SPORT: BADMINTONAGE: 20CLUB: RA CENTRE

ANDREW D’SOUZA

SPORT: BADMINTONAGE: 20CLUB: RA CENTRE SERGIY SHATENKO

SPORT: BADMINTONAGE: 22CLUB: RA CENTRE

Being called a “cow” by teammates might not be flattering for most, but Jenna van Koppen’s spirit animal nickname is a badge of honour. She

grew up on a dairy farm in Metcalfe, and still puts in plenty of hard hours herding each day before moonlighting as a de-fender with Gloucester of the NRL.

Following her older sisters into the sport, Molly Lewis plans to con-tinue her ringette journey well beyond the Canada Winter Games.

Currently playing for the Nepean Ravens Belle ‘AA’ team, the forward would like to take the skills she has learned in ringette and apply them to become a high-level coach in the future.

The University of Ot-tawa student says her weirdest habit is eat pea-nut butter and nutella out of a jar with a spoon. Her spirit animal is a fox.

JENNA van KOPPEN

SPORT: RINGETTEAGE: 20

RINGETTE from p.2

MOLLY LEWIS

SPORT: RINGETTEAGE: 18

Sam Cogan, Josiane Pozzebon and Lindsay Eastwood recently collected some hardware for Nepean and for Canada, and now they want some more for Ontario.

The three Nepean Wildcats have spent plenty of time playing – and winning – together recently. They earned a provincial bronze medal with their club team last year, and later represent Canada at the Jan. 5-12 IIHF Under-18 Women’s World Championship in Buffalo, winning a silver medal.

“We’ve got to know each other and grow as friends. We’re all close,” notes Cogan, the lone forward of the trio, although her counterparts score plenty from the back end nonetheless. “It’s great having them there. If you need someone to pick you up, they know you, how to act around you, and what you need at certain times.”

Competing at the worlds was “a dream come true” for Pozzebon, who was in the stands when Rockland hosted the U18 women’s national team for a series against the U.S. in 2011.

“I went and watched and I thought maybe one day I could be there,” recalls the Bourget native.

It was quite the feeling being on the ice too.“The first game against the U.S. was a big

deal,” Cogan details. “There was a huge crowd, like 2,000 people there watching. There were a lot of U.S. fans, which was hard for us.”

Canada lost that first contest in a shootout, and despite Cogan’s goal to tie it up, lost to the U.S. again in the final in overtime. But wins over the Czech Republic and Russia – twice, including the semi-final – ensured the Canadians received a sil-ver medal for their efforts.

“Standing on the blue line when we won against Russia, that’s a pretty cool feeling to see your flag raised. That’s definitely a highlight I’ll remember forever,” Eastwood reflects. “Obvi-ously everyone wants gold, but you can’t com-plain. We’re #2 in the world, so it’s pretty cool.

“It was a well-fought battle, a really close game and it could have gone either way.”

The three Wildcats are all excited to take part in their first event that isn’t strictly for hockey.

“I’ve heard it’s like a mini-Olympics,” signals Eastwood, a member of the Ontario program that

owns an impeccable record at the U18 nationals. “Representing your province with other people, not just your hockey team, should be pretty cool.”

WILDCATS SENIORS’ FINAL SEASON TOGETHER

After the Canada Games, the trio will return to the Wildcats for the Provincial Women’s Hockey League stretch drive. Nepean is currently in 6th place overall with a 20-6-7, and they’d like to rep-licate their breakout 2013-14 season despite the departure of several key weapons.

This will be the high school seniors’ final PWHL season after a number of years together. Cogan and Eastwood began playing for the Wild-cats at age 14, while Pozzebon joined the next year.

“We’ve been together since we were little rookies fooling around, and now we’re grown up and we’re the vets who have to take care of the rookies,” Eastwood smiles.

There’s a little added impetus for success this season since all three are headed to different universities on NCAA scholarships next year – Eastwood to Syracuse, Pozzebon to Clarkson and Cogan to Wisconsin.

“We’re just enjoying the moment,” Pozzebon underlines. “But we’re definitely going to keep talking in the next years because we’ve built a

friendship. Even if we’re going to play against each other, we can still be friends after the game.”

JR. 67 LINES UP FOR ONTARIO

The nation’s capital will also be represented on the men’s side at the Canada Winter Games with Ottawa Jr. 67’s sniper Greg Meireles set to suit up for Team Ontario.

The 16-year-old forward has scored 18 goals and 23 assists in 24 minor midget ‘AAA’ games this season.

6

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He was used to turning heads locally with his blazing speed on cross-country skis, and though he’s now found plenty of speedy company at the national development centre in Thunder Bay, Ben Wilkinson-Zan continues to nonetheless attract awestruck stares from onlookers at his new home base.

That’s what happens when you ride your bike through all types of winter weather and wind in northern Ontario. It’s one of the drawbacks living away from home – mom and dad’s car isn’t there for the trip to practice.

“Living on my own is the biggest difference,” Wilkin-son-Zan details. “But it’s go-ing well.”

The Lisgar Collegiate Institute grad setup shop at Eastern Canada’s nordic hub in May 2013, and is settling in to the routine of training 5-6 days per week with his team, while studying mech-anical engineering part-time at Lakehead University.

It’s rare that the Nakker-tok Nordic-brewed athlete will get the chance to return home, but Wilkinson-Zan was in town recently for the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 Eastern Cana-dian Championships, hosted

by his old club in Cantley.“It was one of my better

race weekends of the year,” signals the 20-year-old who recorded a top-10 race finish in the senior/open division. “The season was a bit slow to start, but it’s good that things are going up.”

The 2014 World Junior Championships competitor says he’s “super excited” to be headed to the Canada Winter Games next, along-side four fellow under-23-aged teammates from Thun-der Bay and another former member of the group now in Canmore, Alta.

“The team relay is prob-ably going to be one of the most fun events,” indic-ates Wilkinson-Zan, who is expecting stiff challenges from B.C. and Quebec. “The ideal goal would be to bring home the gold. It’s some-

thing everyone on our team knows we can do if we put it together on the day.”

CANADA GAMES ROUND 2Margarita Gorbounova

has twice been to the biggest stage in her sport for the 2010 and 2014 Paralympic Games, and now the 30-year-old will compete in the second Canada Games of her career.

Gorbounova, a full-time federal government trans-lator, did not take part in her sport’s biggest event of this year, however. She missed the Jan. 23-Feb. 1 Interna-tional Paralympic Commit-tee Nordic World Champi-onships in Wisconsin, but did race at the Easterns in the same time period.

Also part of Team Ontario in cross-country skiing will be guides Andrew Bursey and Sofia Attali.

By Dan Plouffe

New Thunder Bay home serves XC skier well OTTAWA AT THE CANADA WINTER GAMES3 Wildcats win world silver before Games

By Dan Plouffe Lindsay Eastwood

photo: dan plouffe

SAM COGAN

SPORT: ICE HOCKEYAGE: 17CLUB: NEPEAN WILDCATS

LINDSAY EASTWOOD


JOSIANE POZZEBON


GREG MEIRELES

SPORT: ICE HOCKEYAGE: 16CLUB: OTTAWA JR. 67’S

BEN WILKINSON-ZAN

SPORT: NORDIC SKIINGAGE: 17CLUB: NAKKERTOK NORDIC

MARGARITA GORBOUNOVA

SPORT: NORDIC SKIINGAGE: 17CLUB: NAKKERTOK NORDIC

7

Canadian Little League ChampionshipsVolunteers needed as East Nepean readies to stage

2015 Canadian Little League ChampionshipsThere may

still be snow on the ground, but for East Nepean Eagles Club Pres-ident Bruce Campbell and

his group who have been preparing for the 2015 Canadian Little League Champion-ships since 2010, August seems like it’s just around the corner.

“Wow. Time really goes by quickly. It is 2015 now,” smiles Campbell, whose organ-ization will host the country’s seven best baseball teams of 11- and 12-year-olds for the Aug. 6-16 event at South Nepean Park. “Building up to it, you’re so busy with everything, and boom, it’s here.”

A major item on the organizing committee’s plate at the moment is recruiting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 250 volunteers re-quired throughout the 11-day tournament.

“There is so much to do and so many things to look after,” Campbell underlines. “Without the volunteers, it just wouldn’t take place. Simple as that.”

Help is needed in a wide range of areas, including park setup and takedown, field crew maintenance, keeping the park clean, parking oversight, souvenir and food sales, as well as general help. With games running all day for over a week, the number of bodies required to cover all shifts quickly multiplies.

The people involved in volunteering locally and with Little League Baseball – which runs almost exclusively on the backs of volun-teers, with only two paid staff nationally for

an organization with 40,000 participants – are a fantastic bunch collectively, Campbell signals.

For high school students seeking to ful-fill their community involvement hours, the tournament is a perfect opportunity to exper-ience what volunteerism is all about, adds the volunteer who’s served 25+ years as East Nepean President.

“They’ll have fun doing it,” Campbell high-lights. “It’s prime summertime. The grass is green and it’s nice and warm. And you’ve got a great game going on.”

HOST VISITING LITTLE LEAGUERSThe Championships organizing committee

is also seeking 40+ billet homes to host a pair of players from the six visiting teams (the Eagles are guaranteed the seventh berth in tournament as hosts).

After completing a police volunteer check, host families will be asked to provide a place for the out-of-towners to sleep, serve break-fast and dinner, and drive the players around to their games and events.

Campbell’s family has hosted players in the past and thoroughly enjoyed the oppor-tunity.

“The kids get to interact and learn from each other,” he indicates. “We’ve had chil-dren here from Nova Scotia, Alberta, you get to learn about that region and what their families do there. Life is certainly different in Glace Bay, N.S. than it is here.

“It’s a great experience, from both ends.”Visit 2015.littleleaguechampionships.ca

for more information, or email [email protected] to inquire about volunteering.

Food services are one of the volunteer roles to be filled.

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Congratulations to Kanata North’s Jean Fei and Lindsay Eastwood on reaching the 2015 Canada Winter Games! Good luck and have fun!

“Sports do not build character, they reveal it.” It’s a popular saying, and for an apt one to describe table tennis competitor Jean Fei’s journey to the Canada Winter Games.

Fei’s coach has observed a trans-formation from the girl with a very shy personality when she began playing around four years ago into a more poised player and person – the timidity slowly evaporating with experience.

“She’s improving so fast,” in-dicates coach Lijuan Geng. “She’s changed her style and she’s more confident when she plays.”

Alongside Fei’s original shyness comes a related trait that’s served her very well from the beginning and allowed her to excel in the sport – composure under stress.

“You need to control your tempo in table tennis,” Geng underlines. “If you’re too high and bring too much power, you’ll probably miss a lot. You have to think about how to be controlled – smart, but still powerful.

“Jean’s game is a very smart game. She’s great at strategizing, which fits with her personality too.”

Fei – also an Ottawa gold medal-list and top-10 finisher in a national math contest – revels in her sport’s mental challenge.

“Competition is interesting because you have to incorporate different skills – not just the skills

that you practice, but also different strategies,” highlights the Grade 11 Earl of March Secondary School student. “It’s like playing a game of chess at the same time.”

Fei says the biggest challenge she faces is keeping up with schoolwork while training most weeknights, but a strong commitment to academics hasn’t kept her from becoming one of the province’s top junior female players. She earned her berth in the Canada Games under-18 com-petition by placing 3rd at an Octo-ber provincial tournament in Mis-sissauga.

“I didn’t really expect to qual-ify,” recalls Fei, who’s now looking forward to her first trip to B.C. “I was really happy.”

Fei’s younger sister Karen fin-ished just a few spots back at the qualifier in 6th place, and will have another shot at making the Canada Games in 2019 since she’s only 13

years old.Karen and Jean regularly face

off in their practice sessions, al-though if one of them (or their older brother, Oliver) isn’t there to rally, Geng can always step in and offer a decent challenge.

Fei’s coach happens to be a past four-time world champion for her native China, and was also a two-time Olympian for Canada (after moving to marry Horatio Pintea, a former Canadian national team player himself).

“She has a lot of experience,” smiles Fei, one of 100+ plus par-ticipants in the 10-year-old Geng Table Tennis Academy. “At first, I was kind of intimidated to come here, but now it’s really great.”

There is another local Team Ontario table tennis player who’s also an immigrant from China – Xuebo Li, a 16-year-old junior na-tional team member and the 2014 Ontario champion.

Li is based at the national train-ing centre on Louisa St. near Glad-stone and Bronson, but has traveled to Toronto alongside Fei several weekends each month for Team Ontario training in preparation for Canada Games.

“Ontario has always done pretty well,” says Fei, noting Ontario is the defending men’s team gold medal-ists and finished one step off the po-dium in the women’s team event at Halifax 2011. “We have something to live up to.”

Table tennis player’s game reflects personalityBy Dan Plouffe Jean

Fei


JEAN FEI

SPORT: TABLE TENNISAGE: 16CLUB: GENG ACADEMY

XUEBO LI

SPORT: TABLE TENNISAGE: 16CLUB: NATIONAL TRAINING CENTRE

photo: dan plouffe

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Best of luck Jack!All of Kanata is cheering

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Councillor Allan Hubley Ward 23 – Kanata South

(613) [email protected]

Jack Fan, provincial triple-gold medallist www.councillorallanhubley.ca

8

But once Leighton did her first race – only her second time on skis ever – she was immediately hooked.

“When everything is going as it should, it’s just the best feeling in the world,” adds the Grade 11 Blyth Academy stu-dent. “When you’re just in the mode and you’re hitting the targets, and then you take off and you’re skiing well, you just feel super awesome.”

There was no better feel-ing for Leighton than Decem-ber’s trials race in Canmore, Alta. when she unexpectedly qualified for the Feb. 13-Mar. 1 Canada Games. The per-formance was especially sur-prising given that the 16-year-old was a year younger than the permitted age group. Leighton required a special exemption to carry her rifle on her back while skiing (instead of picking it up at the shooting station – the usual procedure for younger age groups).

“I was really shocked. My last race was completely out of this world,” recounts Leighton, who loved hosting her Ontario teammates for a “week-long sleepover” during the early-February training camp, as did Lawton.

Canada Games qualific-

ation came as no surprise to Ottawa natives Alex Dupuis and Leilani Tam von Burg. Both have setup shop at the national team training centre in Canmore (where athletes can ski in September on the Frozen Thunder loop made of conserved snow from the pre-vious year).

“The training centre that’s been established there for de-veloping athletes is a great as-set for the entire country. It’s a breeding ground really,” sig-nals 25-year-old Dumond, a past international competitor himself who now works at the Coaching Association of Canada in communications.

The Canmore-based pair are Team Ontario’s veterans. Dupuis was a relay silver

medallist and placed 5th in-dividually at the 2014 Youth World Championships, while Tam von Burg soaked up the European biathlon fever while studying at a German sports school.

The 19-year-old was 1 of 2 Canadian females selected for the Feb. 26-Mar. 7 Junior World Championships, but elected to attend the Canada Games instead – in large part because the cost of the do-mestic trip is covered, while her worlds trip would have been mostly self-funded.

Dupuis and Tam von Burg are Ontario’s top individual medal threats, while Dumond would also like to see Ontario on podium in the men’s and women’s relay events.

ALEX DUPUIS


BIATHLON: Canmore-based Ottawa natives gunning for goldcontinued from p.1 LEILANI TAM von BURG


Figure skater’s smile & spiral light up the rinkOTTAWA AT THE CANADA WINTER GAMES

Local figure skater Jack Fan says a lot when he glides across the ice in a spiral on one foot, with his free leg reach-ing for the sky. Fan is autistic and speaks minimally, but the Goulbourn Skating Club ath-lete has no trouble expressing himself on the ice.

He’s already well-decor-ated from regional and pro-vincial events this season, and will now travel with coach Cathy Skinner and four other Team Ontario skaters to Prince George, B.C. for the Spe-cial Olympics portion of the Canada Winter Games figure skating competition.

Fan has no goals and no future ambitions driving him forward on his silver blades, explains Skinner, he’s simply fuelled by a deep love for skat-ing.

“Oh my gosh, you can see it on his face,” smiles Skinner, a coach of 35+ years.

At a recent Team Ontario training camp, the usually si-lent Fan stunned his fellow ath-letes with an impromptu dis-play of excitement in advance of the Games.

“Jack doesn’t speak much,” Skinner recounts. “When we went into a big room to practice jumps he was suddenly running,

laughing and leaping.”It turns out that passion

leads to great success. On the heels of a triple-gold medal performance at the East-ern Ontario Sectionals, Fan brought home three more golds from the Jan. 29-Feb. 1 Ontario Championships in North Bay, winning the Level 3 men’s singles, Level 1 solo dance and Level 1 couples dance events.

Fan’s support team, which includes Skinner and his par-ents, Mr. and Mrs. Xiaoming Fan, are hoping this will qual-ify the Sir Guy Carleton Sec-ondary School student for next year’s national championships.

Fan, on the other hand, is concentrating on the more im-portant stuff.

“He just wants to keep improving at what he loves to do,” Skinner underlines.

A remarkably powerful skater with strong edge-work and a smile that lights up the arena, Fan is an inspiration for the other skaters at Goulbourn’s thriving seven-year-old Special Olympics program.

“Jack changes the whole

dynamic of the practice,” Skin-ner indicates. “Everyone is benefiting from it. Everyone works harder and everyone looks out for him.”

It takes no more than a mo-ment to feel the pure, bound-less joy Fan is expressing when he’s on the ice.

And then there is his spiral. “His spiral is incredible

– better than most of the girls in the session,” Skinner raves. “When you say higher, he will make it higher. Other athletes will say, ‘I can’t.’ That just doesn’t happen with Jack.”

CHALLENGE CHAMP ON TEAM

Former Minto Skating Club athlete Hannah Dawson, now living at the end of Hwy. 416 in Johnstown, will also compete at the Canada Winter Games in figure skating.

The 13-year-old has en-joyed success in her newfound pairs skating pursuit. Along-side Sherbrooke native Daniel Villeneuve, Dawson won the pre-novice pairs competition at December’s nation-wide Skate Canada Challenge event.

By Anne Duggan

JACK FAN

SPORT: FIGURE SKATINGAGE: 18CLUB: GOULBOURN S.C.

photo: dan plouffe

Jack Fan

9

Good luck to Beacon Hill’s Jake Weidemann and all our dedicated local athletes competing in the 2015 Canada Winter Games!

They’ve been friends es-sentially from the womb, star-ted speed skating together at age 6, spent countless hours together since taking their first strides with the Ottawa Pacers at Dulude Arena, and now Bethany McKinley-Young and Adrienne Gaudreault are set to compete side-by-side at the Canada Winter Games.

“We’ve been really great friends through the whole thing,” Gaudreault signals. “Especially since we started together, getting to go to the Canada Games and accom-plishing that, it’s awesome.”

It’s been a big help to have another skater who’s at a sim-ilar level, Gaudreault adds, someone to go to practice with every night, train with, and cheer each other on. Not to mention another poor soul to provide motivation when they have to drag themselves out to practice at the Brewer Park outdoor oval when it’s -20oC and the wind is howling.

“Sometimes when you’re freezing and you just want to go inside, you’re like, ‘Why didn’t I pick beach volley-ball?’” smiles Gaudreault, a

Grade 12 Lycée-Claudel high school student.

“It’s nice to have someone there suffering with me,” McKinley-Young concurs. “And it’s going to be great to have a friend to go to the Games with.”

ALLY IN DISEASE BATTLEThere probably wasn’t a

time that McKinley-Young valued her friendship with Gaudreault more than when she was battling juvenile arth-ritis. When McKinley-Young was in Grade 9, she was sud-denly suffering from pain in every one of her joints.

“For a long time, I couldn’t skate, I couldn’t bend my knees. Walking up stairs was a struggle,” McKinley-Young recounts. “That was a big set-back for me. Going from be-ing a high-level athlete to be-ing locked was pretty rough.”

From her original ineffect-ive physiotherapy treatments, to her eventual diagnosis of the autoimmune disease, and then the roughly two-year period where her medication doses had to be tinkered with before she felt relief, support from family and friends like Gaudreault was key, McKin-

ley-Young underlines.“I wasn’t able to keep skat-

ing, but I was always welcome at the club,” recalls the Grade 12 Canterbury High School student. “I think I stayed be-cause I just love the sport, I love my team, and I love the other skaters.”

Feeling better, McKin-ley-Young returned to the provincial short-track circuit towards the end of last season, and set Canada Games quali-fication as her goal despite battling frequent flare-ups.

“I trained really hard throughout the summer off-ice, and then I started train-ing really hard on-ice,” de-tails the eventual long-track all-around junior provincial champion. “Qualifying for the Games is a huge accom-plishment for everybody, but for me, it also means that I’ve overcome this.”

Lifelong speed skating friendship lifts Pacer past juvenile arthritis hurdle

Bethany McKinley-Young ADRIENNE GAUDREAULT

SPORT: SPEED SKATINGAGE: 17CLUB: OTTAWA PACERS

By Dan Plouffe

BETHANY MCKINLEY-YOUNG


Four years after sister’s breakout performance, Jake Weidemann tackles Canada Winter Games


There’s no doubt Jake Weidemann is following in his older sister’s footsteps (or skat-ing strides in their case), and that’s just fine by him.

Like Isabelle, Weidemann learned to love the longer dis-tances growing up as a member of the Gloucester Concordes Speed Skating Club, he gradu-ated from Colonel By Second-ary School, he’s setup shop at the national team’s home base at the Calgary Olympic Oval, and he’s studying at the Uni-versity of Calgary and spending his first year in residence.

Soon he’ll join her as an ath-lete who’s attended the Canada Winter Games, and he wouldn’t mind at all if he continues on the same trajectory as his sister, who recently made her senior national team debut at a Feb. 1 World Cup in Hamar, Norway, placing 18th in women’s 3,000 m ‘B’ division.

“It’s definitely a huge inspiration. I want to do as well as her,” says 18-year-old Weidemann, Isabelle’s junior by one year. “It kind of irks me that she does so well – you get some of that sibling rivalry, but it’s kind of gone away in the past year, and we’re just cheer-ing each other on here. It’s su-per cool to watch her go to Nor-way and all those places.”

Speed skating is a real fam-ily affair for the Weidemanns. Younger sister Lily, age 15, was a 500 m bronze medallist and fifth-place overall finisher at January’s Ontario Long-Track Championships at Brewer Park.

“This year, all three of us

are on the Canada Cup cir-cuit, so it’s super awesome,” highlights Weidemann, whose mother is the Concordes club president. “Lily is new to Canada Cups and sort of placed at the bottom of the pile, this is my third year of competing in Canada Cups, so I’m kind of middle of the pack and slowly getting up there, and Isabelle is at the top, so that’s really neat to see our progression.”

OLDER SISTER INSPIRES CANADA GAMES DREAM

Since moving to Calgary, Weidemann has been mak-ing good use of both the gym and the cafeteria, adding some weight and muscle to his lanky 6’3” frame. He’s become speedier and is making up ground on others, just in time for the Canada Games compet-ition he’s long been targeting – since his sister attended in 2011, to be precise.

“For the past four years, it’s been the goal we’ve been build-ing up to,” signals Weidemann. “I didn’t really understand how big it was and how much of an experience it was until Isabelle came back and told us all about it, and we saw it on TV. It was pretty crazy.”

In Halifax, Isabelle re-corded a 4th-place finish in the under-20 competition as a 15-year-old.

“That was a really big breakthrough for her,” Weidemann reflects. “It kind of gave her that kick-starter to get where she is now.”

Isabelle was still eligible for the 2015 Canada Games (and would have likely added 4-5 medals to Team Ontario’s total), but she’ll instead com-pete at the Feb. 20-22 World Ju-nior Championships in Poland.

“If you look at the athletes who have gone to Canada Winter Games – Ivanie Blondin, Lauren McGuire, Vincent De Haitre, Catriona Le

May Doan – it’s usually a step-pingstone to the next level,” notes Mike Rivet, the Con-cordes head coach and Ontario Canada Games team manager.

On top of the four-mem-ber Ottawa Canada Games contingent – which also in-cludes Ottawa Pacers Adrienne Gaudreault, Bethany McKin-ley-Young and Caleb Hovey (who’s battled illness this sea-son) – the alternates next in line for selection were also local athletes: Jasmine Chase from the Pacers and the Concordes’ Jonah Hurtubise, the all-around provincial championships bronze and silver medallists, respectively.

RIVET THE ROCK BEHIND OTTAWA SKATING SUCCESS

Weidemann says there’s no need to look any further than Rivet to see why so many athletes from the area have excelled.

“Everyone goes through him, basically,” he explains. “He’s a great coach and he’s a main contributing factor to the success we’ve had.”

Rivet also takes “orphans” under his wing from other clubs that don’t have long-track pro-grams, such as Brockville’s Nick Everett, often shuttling them down to the refrigerated oval in Lake Placid when Ot-tawa’s natural surface isn’t functional.

Rivet’s continued devotion to the sport stems from the en-joyment he drew from his early involvement in speed skat-ing, he recounts, including the Canada Winter Games.

“It’s a really great experi-ence. For a lot of these athletes, they don’t get a chance to be in a multi-sport environment,” Rivet underlines. “I went to the Games as an athlete in 1971, and some of the people I met from other sports are still my friends today.”

CALEB HOVEY


JAKE WEIDEMANN

SPORT: SPEED SKATINGAGE: 18CLUB: GLOUCESTER CONCORDES

By Dan Plouffe

Along with the athletes, there are a number of coaches and support staff that make the Canada Winter Games come to life.

On top of those featured in other sports, local members of the Team Ontario deleg-ation include Cathy O’Do-herty (mission staff), Darlene Joseph (figure skating coach), Brittany Simpson (women’s hockey technical support), Saxon Giddings (freestyle skiing coach) and Cassandra Smith (snowboard coach).

Team Ontario coach

Darlene Joseph of the

Gloucester Skating Club.

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photo: dan plouffe

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10 COMMUNITY CLUBS

Grade 6 students Juliette Chapman and Avery Rosales from Tumblers Gym-nastics Centre hit a major milestone in their young careers Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Trois-Rivières, Que. when they took their place alongside Canada’s best for their Elite Canada meet debuts.

Chapman also entered her club’s record books by bringing home a silver medal for the balance beam event.

“It was very exciting,” says Chap-man, who performed a near-flawless second-day beam routine to surpass 12 athletes who had a higher degree of dif-ficulty. “I’m very happy to be the first Tumblers athlete to win a medal at Elite Canada.”

“We made history,” beams Tum-blers coach Alina Florea, who was also very proud to have two girls reach the national novice level in their highly competitive age group, which came just one year after the first Tumbler com-peted at Elite Canada.

“It’s a great accomplishment,” adds the Tumblers women’s artistic program director of 6 years. “It’s been a long pro-cess. We always look to bring the young gymnasts along and make the program better, learning from what you did with the previous generation. We learn all the time, so our work improves all the time.

“Hopefully next year, we’re going to have three (at Elite Canada).”

C h a p m a n ’s medal win was an unlikely vic-tory given that she was compet-ing on a sprained ankle. The 11-year-old had to remove some elements from her floor routine

due to the injury, but pushed through the pain on beam and captured her medal.

“That shows how dedicated she is,” Florea underlines.

Chapman and Rosales narrowly missed automatic qualification for the Canadian Championships by finishing outside the all-around top-20 in 21st and 27th respectively, but they can still earn their ticket to the late-May competition in Gatineau through the Ontario Cham-pionships.

The Tumblers pair have been on the same path for a number of years. They competed in their first Canada-wide competition together in 2013 at the Na-tional Stream Cup in Edmonton.

“It helps calm you down having someone you know,” highlights Ros-ales, who competed in the biggest meet she’s taken part in at Elite Canada, watching the likes of Canadian stars El-lie Black and Victoria Moors. “It helped that we`ve done a lot of competitions before, so I wasn`t as stressed, but I was still pretty scared.”

The teammates’ day-to-day support is a big help too.

“We’re always really close, so we also push each other in training,” ex-plains Chapman.

LAS VEGAS GOLD

Another Tumbler, Sophie Paquin, made a pile of new friends from across the province as she attended Team Ontario’s tour event, the Jan. 16-18 Lady Luck Invitational in Las Vegas.

“Competing as a team was probably my favourite part of the whole thing,” signals Paquin, who saw a Cirque du Soleil show with her team the day after the event wrapped up. “We did everything as a team. We spent all day, every day, together. I really loved it. The girls were super nice.”

Paquin’s Ontario teammates had an added reason to be kind to her –

she won the competition. The Grade 9 Béatrice-Desloges high school student’s gold medals on beam and floor lifted her to the Level 9 all-around title, and helped her team place third.

It was also an unexpected triumph for Paquin since she’d missed much of last season with a concussion and just barely qualified for Team Ontario in the last available position.

“I was really excited,” Paquin says. “I knew I had good overall competition, but I wasn’t expecting to come first.”

OGC GYMNASTS MEDAL TOO

Four athletes from the Ottawa Gym-nastics Centre also competed for Team Ontario in Las Vegas.

Emma Christie won a team gold and individual silver medal in Level 8 competition, while Sofia Baggio placed 5th with her Level 10 (National Open) team, and individual all-around silver medallist Catarina Musca and Mad-dison Kelleher-Radey won silver with Ontario’s Level 7 team along with OGC coach Amanda Pepin.

1st Elite Canada medal for TumblersBy Dan Plouffe Juliette Chapman

photo: dan plouffe

Knoxdale-Merivale Councillor Keith Egli presented his ward’s sport and recreation volunteer award to long-time Nepean Hotspurs recreational coach Atul Srivastava on Jan. 29 at Ben Franklin Place.Srivastava has volunteered every summer for the past 10 years and was recognized for the positive impact he’s had on players’, and parents’, soccer and life experiences.

HOTSPURS COACH HONOURED FOR VOLUNTEERISM

After a 2-year ab-sence, an Ontario

high school provin-cial championship

will return to the national capital

this season. The host school for the March 9-12 OFSAA ‘AAA/AAAA’ Girls’

Hockey Cham-pionship is also the favourite to

represent the local association in the

tournament. The All Saints Avalanche

posted a 9-1 record in league play to finish the regular

season in 1st place, with past cham-

pion Louis-Riel in 2nd at 8-2. Ottawa will also host the

OFSAA ‘AA’ Boys’ Basketball

Championship on the same dates.

OFSAA RETURNS

photo: dan plouffe

photo provided

A terrific season just keeps get-ting better for skier Dustin Cook. The 25-year-old from Ottawa reached the international podium for the first time in his career in the biggest race of the season on Feb. 5 at the FIS World Ski Championships in Beaver Creek, CO.

“It is indescribable,” smiles the super-g silver medallist. “When I crossed the finish line, the best way I can explain it is, I lost my mind. I went crazy.”

It was an emotionally draining pair of days for Cook as the race was originally scheduled for the previous morning, but had to be postponed due to weather.

The Nepean High School grad was feeling very confident the first day with the setup of the course, but slight changes diminished that con-fidence on day 2. In addition, Cook was the 28th racer to ski the track, which oftentimes means worse con-ditions than when the first group started.

But the Mont-Ste-Marie athlete cast it aside on race day and blasted past an accomplished group of vet-erans, shocked to see this relative unknown push them off the podium.

“It was like a normal solid run I would do every day in training. I didn’t really make any mistakes,” Cook highlights. “That’s something I can hopefully do day-in and day-out going forward.”

The world silver medal is the crowning jewel to what already would have been considered an ex-ceptionally successful season for the

25-year-old.Thanks to a pair of 12th-place

finishes and a 13th on the World Cup circuit, Cook broke through into the vaunted top-30 rankings, entering the worlds as the top-ranked Cana-dian in the super-g at 13th.

“This is what I’ve dreamed of since I was a kid,” Cook signals. “I’m not at the point yet where I can explain it, but it’s pretty cool to say I’m the best in Canada right now.”

For years, the 2010 Nor-Am series champion struggled to make headway at the World Cup level, of-ten bouncing back and forth between the top international circuit and the lower continental series and miss-ing qualification for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

“That was a huge disappoint-ment for me, even though I wouldn’t have been going into it for a medal or anything, it would’ve just been for the experience,” Cook reflects.

However, a new off-season train-ing program, an added 15 pounds and a different mindset in races have helped Cook rise to be the athlete he

has always strived to be.“I just changed my approach to

racing a little bit,” he explains. “How I inspect the course – I really get to know the course a lot, so it’s almost like I’ve skied it before when I go down. That, plus a few other mental things, have made a big difference.”

Cook identifies his breakthrough 13th-place performance on home soil in November as the catalyst for his rise.

“To get those results in Lake Louise was a huge confidence boost,” he indicates. “At Val Gardena, I was like, ‘OK, this is the real deal now. I can do this every day.’”

Cook has enjoyed solid results in giant slalom races this season as well, currently sitting 34th in the world rankings. With European World Cups continuing into March, he’d like to reach the top-30 in giant slalom and top-10 in super-g.

“I’m so thankful that this is all happening,” Cook underlines. “I’m really hoping that this is just a step in the journey and there is a lot more to come.”

11

OSU Force Academy ZoneFollowing in

the footsteps of former t e a m m a t e s Kris Twardek and Vana M a r k a r i a n ,

Dario Conte has become the third Ottawa South United-brewed player to join a profes-sional soccer club academy from an excep-tional group of groundbreaking 1997-born boys.

As soon as Conte finished his semester in mid-January, the Grade 12 Pierre-Savard high school student moved to Vancouver to join the Whitecaps Major League Soccer franchise. Still setup in a hotel room as he awaits his move-in with a billet family, it’s been an intense but exciting transition to a new life for Conte, one of two new players to join the under-18 Whitecaps academy.

“It’s not so bad because I got welcomed by my friend from my old team,” Conte says of fellow OSU alum Vana Markarian, who joined Vancouver last winter. “He’s showing me the ropes right now.”

There’s a fair amount to learn in a hurry – from small details like what to wear to workouts and athletic therapy sessions, to larger items like players’ responsibilities and coaches’ expectations.

“The training is very fast. It’s game-real-istic,” indicates Conte, who appeared in two U.S. Soccer Development Academy league games for his new first-place club on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.

“They’re always pushing us, but it’s good,” he adds, noting he felt ready to tackle the rigours of a professional environment thanks to his formative years.

OSU Club Head Coach Paul Harris ar-ranged a trial for Conte with Vancouver, and early in 2015, he was asked to join the Whitecaps. Conte previously had trials with a number of other pro clubs and always re-ceived positive feedback, although an offer would not follow.

“Dario displayed tremendous determina-tion throughout those challenges, and we’re very pleased to see him rewarded with this opportunity,” Harris underlines. “For all our young players, this is a great example of what can happen when you believe in your-self and never give up.”

Conte had visited English sides Crewe Alexandra, Peterborough United and Black-pool FC in Harris’ home country, which proved to be valuable experience in prepara-tion for his audition with the Whitecaps.

“It was really challenging. They open your eyes,” the 17-year-old recounts. “I knew what to expect and I knew what the coaches are expecting from you in a pro environment, so it was good.”

Conte says the end rejections from the pro clubs were both discouraging and motivating at the same time.

“You’re sad that you didn’t make the team, but then again, you want to show that you can make a pro team and that you’re persist-ent enough and good enough to do some-thing,” explains the slick attacking midfielder. “You just keep going and keep pushing. It’s really about internal drive. For me, I don’t want to be sitting at a desk from 9 to 5 every day. I want to be a pro footy player.”

3 FORCE ’97S ON PRO PATHConte is the latest member of the storied

Force 1997 boys’ group to join a pro club, along with Markarian and Twardek, a mem-ber of Millwall FC’s academy in London, UK. All three were part of the first Ontario Youth Soccer League-champion squad from East-ern Ontario in 2013, and are now making their mark on bigger stages.

“It’s certainly a rarity, if not a first, that three players from one team in Ottawa, a single age group, move on to join professional clubs,” Harris signals. “We’re very proud to see them move on, and we look forward to even more of our players reaching these high levels in the future.”

New Whitecap Conte latest OSU player to join pro academy

Breakout season culminates in world silverBy Jamie Shinkewski Dustin

Cook

ELITE

photo provided

Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club-brewed Jamie Bissett emerged from an absence of almost three years from Canadian competition while at Purdue University to stun the field at the Feb. 6-8 Winter Senior National Championships in Scarborough, earning the first Canadian crown of his career with a personal-best 451.45-point per-formance in the men’s 3-metre, and then winning silver in the 1 m.

“I’m surprised for sure,” Bis-sett said in a Diving Canada media release. “It was just a competition that fit in well with my schedule and I came here mostly to have fun and wound up with the best per-formance of my career.”

The 21-year-old qualified to compete at the Apr. 9-12 Canada Cup FINA Grand Prix meet in Gatineau, and hit the standard required to be eligible for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games and FINA World Championships.

“I didn’t expect any of this,” added the Sir Robert Borden High School grad who now studies

health sciences. “But certainly if I’m asked to go to represent Canada I will be there. I dive because I en-joy it and I don’t put any pressure on myself about making teams.”

Following a second-place per-formance in the Open category at the Jan. 16-18 Winter Provincials, NODC’s Henry McKay got to compete in the Winter Nationals platform event at age 15, quali-fying 9th in the preliminaries and placing 12th in the finals. McKay was also provincial champion his his Group B age group on 1 m and tower. Group A 3 m provincial champion and 1 m silver medallist Brielle Johnston of ONDC placed 21st at the Nationals after winning the Open 1 m event provincially.

Nepean diver wins stunning national crown

photo provided

They were far from cold in reach-ing four tournament finals in 2014, but Team Homan looks to be heating up just at the right time with the Feb. 14-22 Scotties Tournament of Hearts on tap in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Lisa Weagle, Joanne Courtney, Emma Miskew and Rachel Homan of the Ottawa Curling Club helped their team to victory at the Jan. 8-11 Contin-ental Cup in Calgary, then hit the jackpot in winning the Jan. 16-18 Pinty’s All-Star Curling Skins Game in Banff, Alta.

“The win wasn’t as important as the fact that we played really great as a team,” Homan underlines. “It’s great for morale and excitement going forward.”

With nearly a month between events, the team got in a good stretch of practice at home before the Scotties, including some time with their new fifth Cheryl Kreviazuk, the younger sister of former Team Homan second Alison Kreviazuk. The slight break also al-lowed the team to rest up for “the grind of Scotties week.”

“It’s very tiring,” indicates Homan, who went undefeated 11-0 last year in Montreal. “It takes a lot out of you, but it’s our national championship.”

Homan gives high marks to the sea-son so far and hopes it’ll only get better.

“I’d say it’s the best we’ve had so far,” says the 25-year-old skip of the back-to-back Canadian champions. “But we definitely want that three-peat.”

LOCAL BRIER HYPE

Local curlers Mat Camm and David Mathers, third and second for Mark Kean’s Fenelon Falls rink, will play in the Feb. 28-Mar. 8 Brier in Calgary thanks to their victory at the Ontario Tankard.

The winner of the last Brier held in Ottawa in 2001, Randy Ferbey, was back in the capital on Jan. 20 at the Rideau Curling Club to promote the new Everest Ferbey National Pro Am, a series open to senior curlers of all skill levels from all Canadian curling centres.

Ottawa will host next year’s Tim Hortons Brier from March 5-13, 2016 at TD Place.

By Dan Plouffe

All set for ScottiesRachel Homan

Jamie Bissett

EDITORIAL

Mailing address:902 Pinecrest Rd.

Ottawa, Ont. K2B 6B3

The Ottawa Sportspage is a volunteer-driven newspaper devoted to shining a spot-light on local amateur sport. The Ottawa Sportspage is printed on the first Tues-day of the month by Ottawa Sports Media, the locally- owned publisher of the Sportspage & SportsOttawa.com. Ottawa sports news from high schools, univer-sities, community clubs and elite amateur sport is the name of our game. We’re at The Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community.

Contact:Editor: Dan Plouffe

[email protected]

Team of the Month: Ottawa Futsal Club Chaos U14 BoysTeam Members: Michael Chamberlain, Eric Chirila, Keith Fracasso, Spencer King, Noah Nickerson, Sunil Rathagirishnan, Ante Saric, Ivan Saric, Brady Sterling, Peter Valters, Quinn Valters, Joshua Vullings & Coach Peter Valters.

About: The OFC Chaos were a force at their club’s annual Bob Rathwell Tournament on Jan. 17-18. They opened their competition with 6-1, 3-1 and 12-1 victories before drawing 1-1 against St. An-thony. They won their semi-final match 3-2 to setup a rematch with St. Anthony and came out on top 8-5 in the championship game of the top U14 boys’ division. Other local champions included St. Anthony 3 (U14 boys’ Div. 2), Nepean Lightning (U14 girls) and OFC Power Troopers (U18 girls).

Athlete of the Month: Timothy LewisSport: Diving

Club: Ottawa National Diving Club

School/Grade: Grade 5 Elmdale PS

About: Timmy Lewis had a golden sweep of each one of his events at the Jan. 16-18 Dive Ontario Winter Provin-cials, comfortably winning the 1-metre, 3 m and platform events by at least 8.8 points in the boys’ Group D (age 10-11) competition. Fellow Ottawa National Diving Club teammate Kathryn Grant came home with 2 golds and 1 silver from her girls’ Group D events, while Emma Cor-rigan achieved national qualifying scores and Catherine Boyer and Lubina Nayak also impressed in their champi-onship debuts.

To nominate Stars of the Month, go to SportsOttawa.com and follow the link on the right-hand bar under the Stars of the Month feature. Courtesy of the Ottawa Sportspage and the YMCA-YWCA of the National Capital Region, the selected Athlete of the Month will receive a free one-week Family Pass to the Y, while each member of the Team of the Month will receive free one-visit passes.

YMCA-YMCA OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

STARS OF THE MONTH

The advertising for the 2015 Pan American Games has solidly implanted its “ready or not, here I come” commercials into the heads of tele-vision viewers across the country, but for one Ottawa athlete, that message is about to apply in a more literal sense.

Kanata’s Lucinda Nowell recently got the official word that she’d been selected to be part of Canada’s group rhythmic gymnastics team for the 2015 season, which includes the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.

“It’s really exciting. I’ve never been to an

event like this before,” Nowell signals. “Just filling out the bio and getting our clothing was really exciting, and training in the new facilit-ies in Toronto and Scarborough that have been built.”

For a gymnast who’s spent much of 2014 travelling internationally with her team, it’s all come full circle to the point that her biggest team event to date will take place on home soil.

“In August, we had two qualifiers for the Pan Am Games that were in Toronto, so we got to experience it a little bit,” Nowell details. “But that was just for gymnastics, not multi-sport, so the Games should be exciting.”

The Kanata Rhythmic Gymnastics-brewed athlete was part of Canada’s group rhythmic team last season, appearing at several World Cups as well as September’s World Champion-ships, but she still had to ensure her own spot on the team moving forward.

“You have to tryout every year, so I was on the team last year, but after World Champion-ships, we had a little break and we had to try-out again,” explains the first-year University of Toronto student. “You have to keep up the standard. You don’t have a guaranteed spot just because you made it once.”

OVERCOMES MANY BUMPS ALONG THE WAY

Nowell was an individual national clubs silver medallist in 2013, but moved to Toronto the next year with her mom to join the group rhythmic national team program at its home base and complete her final year of high school.

It hasn’t been a totally smooth ride since then. Events in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Bul-garia proved to be some of the bigger, and in some cases more tumultuous, performances of the travel-heavy season.

The only other out-of-town member of the team had left the squad earlier in the season, and then a second was forced out of competition in Bulgaria due to a foot infection.

“Things like that kept happening,” Nowell recounts. “There were a lot of bumps along the way.”

But the team finished the season on a high

that they hope will now continue to push them upwards. Canada moved forward in the Olympic qualification process with a 21st-place perform-ance at the World Championships, grabbing one of the last four remaining positions in Turkey.

“For our team, just getting to World Cham-pionships was a big accomplishment,” under-lines the 18-year-old Rio 2016 hopeful. ”Finish-ing in the top-24 was a big goal that we got to.”

Rhythmic gymnast secures national team place in Pan Am Games seasonBy Alex Quevillon

file photo

Lucinda Nowell

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12

13ELITE

Gloucester Concordes friends and Sochi 2014 Olympic speed skaters Vincent De Haitre and Ivanie Blondin shared the Male and Female Athlete of the Year prizes at the Jan. 28 Ottawa Sports Awards banquet at Algonquin College.

“It makes it that much more special” to be recognized together, indicates De Haitre, a re-cent 10th-place finisher in the 1,000 metres at the Feb. 8 ISU World Cup meet in the Nether-lands. “It’s a real honour.”

De Haitre recorded the top performances out of Ottawa male athletes at both the biggest winter and summer multi-sport games of 2014. At age 19, he was the youngest member of the Canadian speed skating team at the Sochi Olympics by four years, and also competed for Canada in track cycling at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Blondin finished 2014 ranked #1 in the world herself, winning 4 World Cup medals in 4 mass start races, along with a 5,000 m bronze. The 24-year-old leader of the Canadian wo-men’s team is off to a solid start in 2015 as well, having earned a mass start silver on Feb. 1 in Norway.

“Now that I’ve gotten on the podium at the World Cups, maybe the next step would be to

bring home a World Championship medal,” sug-gests Blondin, who will compete in the World Single Distance Championships Feb. 12-15 in the Netherlands and the World Allround Cham-pionships Mar. 7-8 in Calgary. “I’m not saying it’s going to happen this year, but I hope it does.”

Also collecting major awards were Team Homan and Carleton basketball, selected Fe-male and Male Team of the Year for the 4th time in 5 years and 9th time in 12 years respectively, while University of Ottawa Gee-Gees men’s basketball coach James Derouin and Special Olympics coach Claudette Faubert earned Male and Female Coach of the Year honours.

Four highly-recognized faces from the local sports community collected Lifetime Achieve-ment Awards.

Mayor’s Cup winner Lee Powell has worn an immense number of hats in a wide-ranging career as a player, coach, referee, board member and event organizer from the local to interna-tional stage.

“It’s an honour to be recognized for the work you’ve done, and it’s amazing to be recog-nized for just being in the sport that you love and that has given so much back to you,” says the 65-year-old who originally transferred his football skills to rugby while at the University of Manitoba. “There were so many partners,

players and other dedicated people I met in my life, so this award isn’t a one-man show in my mind.”

The Brian Kilrea Lifetime Coaching Award went to Ottawa Fencing coach Paul ApSimon, a key figure in building the sport locally and putting Canada on the map in the international scene.

“At first, I had to ask (the selection com-mittee) if they were sure it was me and not my father,” quips the 47-year-old. “I figured that I was a bit young to get a lifetime achievement

award, but they confirmed it and I’m proud to be chosen.”

ApSimon was “born into fencing,” as he puts it, competing himself for years before first picking up coaching at the University of Ottawa 27 years ago.

“I’m definitely more involved in it at this stage of my life than I thought I would be when I started,” states the foil national team coach. “A lot of people think a lifetime achievement award is for people at the end of their great careers, but I think I’m actually just starting to scratch the surface.

“One of my goals is to have one of my ath-letes win a medal at the Olympic Games.”

Earning the final two lifetime awards were Ron Port and Laura Knowles.

Port spent his entire 49-year career at Algon-quin College building up its sports program and facilities, but the athletic director of 30 years brought the house down as he collected the life-time honour for a volunteer/administrator at Al-gonquin. Ringette Canada hall of fame inductee Knowles was recognized for her lifetime contri-butions as a technical official.

Full details on all the winners in over 60 in-dividual sports as well as the local teams that won a minimum of a provincial championship are available at ottawasportsawards.ca .

Young stars & veteran volunteers share major awardsBy Dan Plouffe & Jon Willemsen Jim Watson & Mayor’s Cup winner Lee Powell

photo: dan plouffe

Silver-medallist Chartrand wows the crowd, and then the TV cameras, at figure skating nationals

Her face said it all. And the scream and the hands on the cheeks in shock helped convey the message too.

Alaine Chartrand gave an absolutely price-less reaction to her scores in the kiss-and-cry area on Jan. 24 at the Cana-dian Tire National Skat-ing Championships in Kingston.

And she had a pretty memorable skate too, good enough for the senior women’s silver medal and a trip to the Mar. 23-29 ISU World Championships in Shanghai.

“I was freaking out,” recalls Chartrand, who was blown away to see a long program score north of 120 points for the first time in her career to total 184.24. “That was unbe-lievable.”

The Nepean Skating Club athlete experienced the opposite reaction last year when she didn’t skate her best and placed 5th at the nationals/Olympic trials in Ottawa. But several strong inter-national performances –

including her first senior Grand Prix medal in November – filled her with confidence leading up to the Canadians.

“It was like going to nationals twice before going to nationals. It was the same atmosphere,” describes the 18-year-old from Prescott. “It felt more familiar going into nationals. I’d been in that situation.”

Another big change is that Chartrand has stopped sweating about the little things.

“That’s probably the biggest difference from last year,” she indicates, explaining that if she makes a mistake, she’ll carry on and ensure she doesn’t make another.

Chatrand also likes being the first one on the ice for warmup, but sometimes that wish can’t materialize.

“Sometimes they’d line you up and I’d be stuck in the back,” re-calls the Grade 12 Thou-sand Islands Secondary School student. “That used to annoy me so much.”

It didn’t matter when she stepped on the ice in

Kingston, the crowd was ready to roar for her.

“They knew I was a local skater, so when I came on the ice, people were cheering for me be-fore my name was even announced,” recounts Chartrand, who holds the audience reaction after her program as another treasured memory. “The standing ovation – I’ve never had one of those before. I don’t know how I could top that.”

Chartrand still re-mains in awe that she’ll be going to the World Championships shortly.

“This is a huge deal going to the World Championships,” under-lines the Ottawa Sports Awards figure skater of the year. “I’m one of two in the whole country in my category. It’s such a huge honour and I’m looking forward to rep-resent Canada with great pride.”

Kanata natives Melinda and Andrew Meng produced the top result out of local skaters competing in the junior and novice divisions, earning a bronze medal in junior ice dance.

By Dan PlouffeOttawa is probably at the bottom of most people’s lists of places they’d like to go to escape the cold in winter. The excep-tion to that rule happens to be the Cana-dian women’s marathon record holder.

Lanni Marchant, who lived in Ottawa for two years while studying law at the University of Ottawa, is spending a fair chunk of her winter at the Louis-Riel Dome – home of Canada’s only indoor 400-metre track.

The 30-year-old London, Ont. native isn’t afraid of the cold, but the risk of slip-ping or falling outside isn’t worth the risk, so she makes sure to do her workouts on the track.

“For easy runs, I’ll still bundle up and go outside. You just have to accept you’re not going to hit any paces you would nor-mally hit, even on an easy run,” Marchant explains. “(Running outdoors in winter) just feels that much harder. You’ve got all these layers on and you feel like the Pills-bury Doughboy.”

The owner of the three-fastest Cana-dian women’s marathon times on record credits the Louis-Riel Dome facility as a key piece in the puzzle that’s turned her into a world-class runner.

“I love training here,” underlines Marchant, who stays with Athletics Canada operations manager and former hurd-ler Jared MacLeod when she’s in town. “When I was here for law school, I think it was probably one of the only reasons why I kept on running at a quasi-elite level – that I could come and workout here.”

Marchant did take off for some warmer temperatures after a January visit, spend-ing 6 weeks at a training camp in Kenya. But she’s planning to again setup shop in

Ottawa for the bulk of her preparation for the springtime New York half-marathon.

With the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games marathon punched on her schedule, Marchant is planning to train for the 10,000 metres on the track as well since she’d like to attend the IAAF World Championships this season, but wouldn’t have time to pre-pare for a second marathon.

“I’ve been focusing more on speed this winter,” highlights Marchant, laughing as she notes that she’s set new personal-bests in both the 200 m and 600 m. “I’ve gained more speed, which is exciting, especially if I want to be a 10k runner for part of the season.”

By Dan Plouffe

Canadian record holder sets up camp in Ottawa

file photo

photo: dan plouffe

Alaine Chartrand

Lanni Marchant

Year-Round Training Programs for All Ages and LevelsDaily Training Environment lead by Triathlon Canada-Certified High- Performance CoachOver 40 Provincial, National and International Podium Finishes by Bytown Storm athletesStorm Race Teams for Kids of Steel (8+ years) Ontario Youth Cup (12+ yrs) & Jr./U23 Elite Draft-Legal

The Carleton Ravens swat-ted back the University of Ot-tawa Gee-Gees 79-66 to end the Gee-Gees’ perfect 14-0 run in Ontario University Athletics men’s basketball play on Feb. 6 at the MBNA Capital Hoops Classic.

Led by Thomas Scrubb’s game-high 29-point perform-ance, the Ravens avenged their pre-Christmas defeat to the Gee-Gees, who remain one game ahead of 13-2 Carleton in the OUA standings.

“I thought we did a pretty good job defensively for the most part,” Carleton coach Dave Smart said in the Ravens’ game recap. “They are tough.

They have a lot of talent.”Ottawa native Johnny Ber-

hanemeskel was uOttawa’s top scorer with 28 points, while Phil Scrubb (13), Ottawa-raised Gavin Resch (13) and Connor Wood (10) all hit double-digits for the Ravens.

A CIS regular-season re-cord crowd of 10,780 crowd witnessed the clash between the country’s 2 top-ranked teams at Canadian Tire Centre.

The 10-5 Gee-Gees downed the 7-8 Ravens 46-40 in the wo-men’s Capital Hoops tilt.

GGS HAUL IN SWIM MEDALSThe host University of Ott-

awa Gee-Gees won 5 gold and

17 medals at the Feb. 5-7 OUA Swimming Championships to place 4th and 5th in the overall men’s and women’s team stand-ings.

Robert Bonomo was the Gee-Gees’ top performer with a 5-medal haul, winning 3 gold in the 100 m and 200 m back-stroke and the 50 m butterfly to go with a silver in the 100 fly and a 400 m medley relay bronze, while senior Eryn Wel-don was the best female Gee-Gee, winning gold in the 400 m individual medley, silver in 200 m IM, 200 breast and bronze in the 800 free relay.

Cold temperatures did not chill the perform-ances of more than 600 athletes at the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 Canadian Eastern Championships held at Nakkertok Nordic’s cross-country ski complex in Cantley.

Organizers and athletes alike, were thrilled with the three days of spectacular racing, des-pite the shortening of Sunday’s long distance classic ski races due to sub -15oC temperatures.

Leading local athletes at the senior level of competition were the Carleton Ravens’ Colin

Abbott and Kendra Murray, both of whom were the fastest university athletes on all three days of racing.

“Warming up was very important on Sunday,” highlights Abbott, originally from Whitehorse and a skier since age 4. “I needed to be ready to go at any time and (the lead pack) made a break early. It was great that waxing was not a factor, so the emphasis was on fitness.”

The 24-year-old fourth-year environmental science student was 6th in open competition in Sunday’s classic mass start 15 km race, which was originally going to be a 20 km race, and

was also the top uni-versity male in earlier 15 km classic and free races.

Murray, who also hails from Whitehorse, had her best result from Sunday’s frigid classic race as well, placing 2nd out of all women, while also winning the wo-men’s university 10 km classic and free events.

Chelsea Nordiq’s Laura Leclair domin-ated the 1997-born girls’ junior B category at the championships, winning the 3 km skate prologue, the 5 km skate and pla-cing 3rd in the 5 km classic mass start.

“The 5 km skate race

was my best race of all,” Leclair underlines. “My legs were lighter and more powerful. I felt strong and it was my kind of course. There were lots of hills and fast conditions. I like hunting people down.”

Though disappointed with the shortened race, Nakkertok’s Kailey Young made the most of it and ended up with her best result of the weekend, winning the 5 km classic event by 8 seconds in the challenging conditions.

“Classic is my best technique,” notes the 14-year-old Glebe Collegiate Institute student who also topped her 3 km free category. “I was a little worried because although the wax was fast, the grip wax was less sticky. But the down-hills went really well.”

Kanata Nordic’s Andrew Hayman swept all three 2000 midget boys’ races, with teammate Philipe Turcanu joining him on the podium in

the 3 km skate prologue and 5 km skate.“It was probably the first time that Kanata

placed first and second at the Easterns,” signals Hayman, a Grade 9 West Carleton Secondary School student. “I am so proud of those mo-ments on the podium with my friend. Our club is small and, until now, Kanata Racers has not been know for its competitive racers.”

Chelsea Nordiq’s Carly Little also produced a sweep of the 2001 girls’ category.

“My classic race was great,” recounts the 13-year-old. “Usually, I am nervous for mass starts, but it went well.”

Other local champions included Nakkertok’s Mats Halvorsen, a double-winner in the 2001 boys’ 5 km classic and free, Skinouk’s Nicholas Pigeon (Jr. A 15 km free), and 5 km free winners Alia Sanger of Chelsea Nordiq (1999 girls) and Nakkertok’s Alison Pouw (1998 girls).

Freezing weather lifts local skiers at EasternsBy Anne Duggan

COMMUNITY CLUBS / UNIVERSITIES


Alexandra Slobodian from the host Nakkertok Nordic Ski Club com-petes in the women’s free sprint event at the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 Eastern Canadian Championships.

photo: dean joncas

Classic Carleton

OUA continues next page

14

The Ottawa-Nepean Futuro under-13 boys’ soccer team reached the semi-final round at the Feb. 7-8 Ontario Indoor Cup finals in Vaughan. Ottawa-Nepean opened the competition with a 2-0 defeat to Erin Mills, but bounced back with 5-0 and 3-2 victories over Milton and North Mississauga to reach the playoff round, where they fell 3-0 to Toronto Epic.

OTTAWA-NEPEAN REACHES ONTARIO INDOOR CUP SOCCER SEMI-FINAL ROUND

TRILLIUM GRANT SUPPORTS RIDEAU RACE COURSE UPGRADES

FENCER EARNS JR. PAN AM TEAM SILVERJenny Zhao helped Canada to a silver medal win behind USA in the junior women’s foil team competition at the Feb. 3-8 Cadet/Junior Pan American Fencing Championships in Scarborough.

The Ottawa Sports Awards fencer of the year also placed 16th individually.

WATER POLO PLAYERS LIFT CANADA TO AMERICAS TOURNEY WIN, WORLDS BERTHFour Ottawa water polo players helped Canada’s men’s and women’s water polo teams to victory at the Jan. 28-Feb. 1 UANA Cup at the 2015 Pan Am Games site in Markham. Capital Wave player Jessica Gaudreault, 20, was a goalie for the women’s team that won 2 of 3 matches over Brazil, while John Conway’s 10 tournament goals helped power the men past Argentina and Brazil, with fellow Ottawa Titans alumni David Lapins (with 2 goals) and Alec Taschereau (4) also hitting the scoresheet. Both teams qualified for the July 24-Aug. 9 FINA World Championships in Russia.

CARLETON RAVENS CURLERS ROCKET TO PERFECT START AT FISU GAMESThe 2014 Canadian university-champion Carleton Ravens rink of Jessica Armstrong, Lauren Horton and Lynn Kreviazuk, along with new skip Breanne Meakin (in place of Jamie Sinclair, now based in the U.S.), was undefeated through their first 6 matches in the women’s curling competition at the Feb. 4-14 FISU Winter World University Games in Granada, Spain. Canada beat Korea 6-4, Japan 10-2, Great Britain 9-2, Sweden 9-3,

Switzerland 6-4 and Spain 16-2, with round robin contests remaining against Norway, Russia and USA. A pair of Ottawa natives are also competing in alpine skiing at the Universiade. The Univerité de Montréal’s Victoria Mar-tel-Stevens placed 16th in the women’s super-g and 8th in the super com-bined, while Université Laval’s Stéphanie Gould did not finish both events.

The Rideau Canoe Club will upgrade its Mooney’s Bay race course in ad-vance of the Aug. 25-29 Canadian Sprint Canoe-Kayak Championships. With a formal presentation from Ottawa-Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi, the RCC received a $76,200 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation at its Feb. 6 fundraising evening to support long-desired upgrades such as installing more buoys to mark lanes. “Hosting nationals again at the Rideau Canoe Club has been our goal for many years now,” RCC commodore Ronald Sibthorpe said in a media advisory. “Getting this grant to build a quality race course makes it possible. I am very excited to be part of such an incredible event.”

Two teams from the host club celebrated titles at the 40th-annual Gloucester-Cumber-land Ringette Association Tournament. The host Devils won both the Under-10 ‘Green’ and ‘Gold’ divisions at the Feb. 5-8 event that featured over 90 teams from across Canada. The Devils were also finalists in U14 ‘B’ and ‘C’, U9 ‘Green’, U19 ‘B’, and U12 ‘R’. The Nepean Ravens were runners-up in the U14 ‘AA’ division, while Nepean

and Ottawa were semi-finalists in U19 and U16 ‘AA’ respectively. Ottawa downed Nepean in the U16 ‘B’ final, while the Ottawa Ice were finalists and Metcalfe semi-finalists in U12 ‘PP’.

MANY LOCAL WINNERS AT 40TH GCRA RINGETTE TOURNEY

Team Canada sledge hockey players Marc Dorion and Ben Delaney of Ottawa scored 2 goals and a goal and an assist apiece in 5 games to help Canada to a 3rd-place showing at the Feb. 1-7 World Sledge Hockey Challenge in Leduc, Alta. Canada beat South Korea twice, split their contests with Russia and lost to USA at the Hockey Canada-organized event.

WORLD SLEDGE BRONZE FOR OTTAWA TEAM CANADA PLAYERS

PARA-SNOWBOARDER MAKES X GAMES BIG FINAL

OTTAWA SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTS

Ottawa Akademy snowboarder and Sochi 2014 Paralympian John Leslie reached the X Games final in men’s adaptive snowboard cross, finishing 4th at the Jan. 23 event in Aspen, CO.

London 2012 Paralympian Jody Schloss opened her 2015 equestrian season with a victory in the Grade 1a team test event at the Jan. 9-11 CPEDI3* Global Dressage Festival in Florida.

SCHLOSS OPENS PARA-DRESSAGE SEASON WITH FLORIDA WIN

LOCAL ALPINE SKIER WINS 3 OF 4 ONTARIO SERIES COMPETITIONSLouis-Riel high school and Harvard University grad Rebecca Nadler was the dominant performer during four days of Ontario FIS races at Craigleith and Georgian Peaks ski clubs in Collingwood. The Mont-Tremblant athlete won the Jan. 31 women’s slalom competition, as well as the giant slalom races on Feb. 2 and 3.

Former GO Kingfish swimmer of OUA-champion University of Toronto Varsity Blues beat the Gee-Gees’ Connor Michie to the line and set an OUA record in the men’s 200 m breaststroke – one of his four gold medal wins.

uOttawa’s Audrey Prayal Brown (gold, 50 m breast & bronze, 100 m breast), Montana Cham-pagne (silver, 200 IM & bronze, 400 IM), Caitlin Hodge (silver, 400 free & bronze, 800 free), and Car-olyne Godon (bronze, 50 breast) were also medallists.

CU FENCERS COLLECT HARDWAREThree Ravens fencers earned

individual medals and the epée and sabre teams won gold and bronze at the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 OUA Women’s Fencing Championships in Toronto.

Isabelle Gauthier and Adrienne Sukunda were epée and sabre champions respectively, while Emese Dukai was the epée bronze medallist.

uOttawa’s Alexandra Lyn was also a provincial champion, win-ning the foil competition.

GGS BEAT CANADA’S BESTThe #7-ranked Gee-Gees wo-

men’s volleyball team dropped the first 2 sets of their contest against the #1 Toronto Varsity Blues, but stormed back for a thrilling 18-25, 25-27, 25-16, 25-23, 15-12 road

victory on Feb. 7. uOttawa finished the OUA regular season in 2nd place with a 16-3 record.

The uOttawa women’s hockey team also knocked off nation’s top-ranked team, recording their second win of the season over the Université de Montréal Carabins at home on Feb. 1.

The 6-11 Gee-Gees won the game 4-2 and are now in 4th place at 6-11, with a first-round playoff matchup against the Carabins likely on tap following their last 3 games of the regular season.

The #9-ranked Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team finished the reg-ular season 2nd in the OUA East by 1 point with a 20-5-1 record.

—Dan Plouffe

OUA continued from last page

UPCOMING RAVENSVARSITY GAMES

RAVENS BASKETBALL @ THE RAVENS NEST

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT GORAVENS.CA OR [email protected]

Friday, February 20th – 6 p.m.Women vs Laurentian

RAVENS HOCKEY @ THE ICE HOUSE

Saturday, February 21st – 8 p.m.Men vs Nipissing

(Regular Season Finale)

Friday, February 20th – 7 pmWomen vs McGill

Saturday, February 21st – 2 pmWomen vs Ottawa


OUA Men’s Hockey PlayoffsSEE GORAVENS.CA FOR UPDATED SCHEDULES

Friday, February 20th – 8 p.m.Men vs Laurentian

Saturday, February 21st – 6 p.m.Women vs Nipissing


Cemal Gunenl (blue) from the host National Capital Wrestling Club was one of the 300+ participants in the club’s annual festival on Jan. 17 at St. Patrick Catholic High School. Three weekends later at the Feb. 7-8 Ontario Cadet/Juvenile Wrestling Championships in Brampton, NCWC athletes won 3 medals, with Devan Larkin earn-ing gold (cadet 66 kg), Klara Patel silver (juvenile 70 kg) and Adelaide Eve (cadet 40 kg), while Sandrine Thomasine of Tsunami Academy also took silver (cadet 48 kg).


Grapplin’ for gold

15

2014

Ivanie BlondinKRISTINA GROVES FEMALE

ATHLETE OF THE YEAR AWARD

Vincent De HaitreMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

Team Homan Curling Rink FEMALE TEAM OF THE YEAR

James DerouinMALE COACH OF THE YEAR

Claudette FaubertFEMALE COACH OF THE YEAR

Carleton Ravens BasketballMALE TEAM OF THE YEAR

CELEBRATING THE FINEST IN AMATEUR SPORT IN OTTAWA

MAJOR TROPHY WINNERS

For details and bios please visit:Follow us on: www.ottawasportsawards.ca

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