CANADA GAMES PODIUM PACKED

PAIR ROCK IN RACQUET SPORTS

2014 NATIONALS BACK IN TOWN

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When the game clock ticked down to zero and the Myers Riders made history as Ottawa’s first-ever Ontario Varsity Football League champions, quarterback Nick Gorgichuk immedi-ately ran for the stands and gave the game ball to Sandy Ruckstuhl, the club president who’s backed the team for over 30 years.

“I’m getting older and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay involved,” Ruckstuhl signals. “It was a big thrill to finally win it, and that was a really nice thing for me – those kids were very excited for me too.”

The exchange between Gorgichuk and Ruckstuhl was a poignant moment – a current star player honouring a fig-ure who helped build the strong found-ation, while bringing local football to new levels himself.

And it reflected the state of Ottawa football as a whole in 2013 – a proud past and deep roots worth celebrating, with the potential to grow further to new and greater levels.

The Carleton Ravens rose from the ashes and returned to Canadian In-teruniversity Sport football on Sept. 2, and the Ottawa RedBlacks are set to do the same next summer in the Cana-dian Football League.

Football has remained exception-ally strong at the grassroots levels in the intermittent years without those two major teams, however – starting with the National Capital Amateur

Football Association for youth play-ers, right up to the city’s junior foot-ball clubs.

“The Ottawa area has seen a steady improvement in the quality of football over the past few years,” says NCAFA president Stephen Dean, whose asso-ciation boasts an enrollment of 4,000+ athletes across all of their programs. “You can see evidence of this in the number of players who come through the NCAFA and participate in high school, junior and CIS programs.

“NCAFA is a critical element in player and coaching development and is responsible for laying the founda-tion to not only grow the sport, but to improve it as well.”

COMMUNITY ENTHUSIASM HIGH

With a strong grassroots presence in Ottawa already established, the question, therefore, is how much the sport will further prosper thanks to the reintroduction of the prominent elite teams.

Josh Sacobie, the former Univer-sity of Ottawa Gee-Gees star quarter-back who’s now receivers coach for the Ravens, agrees that the true strength of the Ottawa football community will be seen in the collaboration between or-ganizations at all levels of play – com-munity engagement and a love of the sport, he says, are two things that will benefit everyone involved.

“I think it will have a great impact on the sport in Ottawa,” Sacobie says, predicting even more local prospects will move on to play CIS, NCAA and even pro football in the years to come. “People tend to connect more with higher level play, so I think it’s a way to attract more young football players to the sport.”

The Ravens, who focused the early stages of their recruitment pro-cess during the off-season on locking down local talent, have benefited from the support of a dedicated university as well as a community that’s thrilled to see another team suit up for Ottawa.

“There’s a sense of excitement for sure,” Sacobie says on the eve of the first game back at Carleton on Sept. 7. “It’s becoming more obvious now as we get closer to our home opener. It’s been gone for 15 years now so it’s been good to know that people are starting to catch on.”

Ottawa athletes were a force in Sher-brooke, bringing home over 50 medals from the 2013 Canada Summer Games.

Gabriela Dabrowski breaks through in Ro-gers Cup tennis doubles, while Sam Cor-nett eyes Olympic inclusion for squash.

For the second year in a row, local gym-nasts will compete at the Canadian cham-pionships in front of a hometown crowd.

Always strong grass-roots football rising to new heights, poised to grow higher with return of Ravens & CFL clubs

FOOTBALL continues on p.15

photo: dean joncas

By Brendan McConnell

Jaegar Prot and his Myers Riders made club history by winning their first OVFL league title.

ROWERS MEDAL AT WORLDS

P. 4Cristy Nurse & Sarah Black won silver & bronze medals to lead Ottawa Rowing Club athletes at the world championships.

HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 2, #12 September 2013

Reaching greater ranks

The Carleton Ravens have returned to CIS football, and will kick off at their newly expanded home stadium on Sept. 7.

COMMUNITY CLUBS

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For an athlete, there is no prouder experience than wearing your na-tion’s jersey at the highest level of competition in the world. Imagine doing that at the age of 11 or 12 like the East Nepean Eagles did at the Aug. 15-25 Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA.

Coach Mark Keeping, who’s dir-ected the team for three years, can-not name a more heady experience, a higher highlight than the moment the team pulled on those Canadian jerseys and showed them off to the world.

“The ability to walk through the gates at the complex and be re-cognized as some of the best in the world: that’s what they really liked,” Keeping signals.

Eagles second baseman Cole Dennison agrees that the Team Canada uniforms made it for him, es-pecially at the Grand Slam parade, an event that must have been a souped-up cross between the Olympics and Halloween for all of the pre-teen par-ticipants.

“Each team gets their own float and people cheer at you and throw you candy, all different kinds of

candy. We were in our Canadian uni-forms,” details Dennison, a 12-year-old St. Mark Catholic High School student who was most proud of his hit against Chinese Taipei – the team’s first in their first game.

East Nepean went on to lose the game 10-2. Dennison says the team concentrated on playing for fun once they arrived at the World Series.

“After the Canadian national series, we knew the competition was going to be so tough,” he indicates. “We started to play to have fun, not win.”

In the end, the team lost its first and last games against Chinese Taipei and Panama, 10-0, and won their middle game against the Czech Re-public, 4-3. Keeping points to that victory as another team high.

“Winning during primetime on a Sat-urday night was high drama,” he underlines. “What we succeeded at was having fun, giving it our best. When we were playing a simil-arly matched team, we

played well.”Keeping considers

the Nepean Eagles’ per-formance at the World Series an impressive achievement because they had to compete against teams who play and practice 12 months of the year, rather than the four months avail-able to Ottawa teams, due to local weather.

“I think this win shows our kids in Ottawa, especially the ones com-ing up, that we can do it,” says Keep-

ing, whose club will host the 2015 Canadian championships for the 11-12 age group that qualifies for the

Little League World Series. “I hope we see a boost to registration across the city.”

Wearing maple leaf is Eagles’ lasting World Series prizeBy Anne Duggan

photo providedThe East Nepean Eagles wore Team Canada colours at August’s Little League World Series.

2

Three Ottawa teenagers have come home as cham-pions from Rugby Canada’s national rugby festival. John Shaw, Catherine Belanger and Ingrid Krausbar all won gold for their Team Ontario squads at the Aug. 7-11 championship at the University of British Columbia.

“It’s just awesome,”

says Shaw, who plays for the Bytown Blues club locally. “I’ve been in the Ontario pro-gram since U15 and this is the first time we’ve won. It’s really nice to come away with the gold.”

In Ontario’s four wins, Shaw scored two tries, includ-ing one in the 29-21 champion-ship win over British Colom-bia. He attributes Ontario’s success all the way back to

team tryouts. “This year,

there has been more competition than ever to get a spot on the team,” he notes. “Every-one really battled for the spots and once we made it we were just ready to go.”

Shaw isn’t the first in his house-hold to earn na-tional rugby gold; his older brother Billy won as well. His brother is a big reason Shaw began playing, and helped in his success.

3 win rugby national champsBy Josh Bell

RUGBY go to p.4photo provided

3

Ottawa came up big at Aug. 2-17’s 2013 Canada Summer Games in Sherbrooke, Que., with nearly three-quarters of the 40 local Team Ontario athletes bringing home medals from the national multi-sport event that serves as a launching pad towards the Olympics.

Rideau Canoe Club paddlers Megan Sibthorpe, Maddie Schmidt, Drew Hodges, Brendan Fowler and Alexandra Joy accounted for 17 of Ot-tawa’s 54 total medals won for Team Ontario, which includes 16 gold.

“We at Rideau are very happy,” says executive director Hector Car-ranco. “Our athletes performed ex-tremely well. There are many younger kids looking at these athletes and what they are able to achieve. The medals give value to the amount of work done; they give the other kids’ work a concrete objective.”

Bolstered by a world junior bronze medal performance the previ-ous week on Welland, Ont., 18-year-old Schmidt was the most decorated local Canada Games athlete with five medals – gold in the K-1 (kayak single) 500 metres, silver in the K-2 200 m and K-4 200 m (both in the same boat as Natalie Davision of Carleton Place Canoe Club) and K-2

5,000 m, and bronze in the K-4 500 m (alongside Joy).

Sibthorpe, 17, was the most golden Ottawa athlete, winning the C-4 500 m, C-4 200 m and C-2 500 m events, plus a silver in C-2 5,000 m.

The young CANI Athletics club also put in a strong performance in Sherbrooke, as its three track-and-field competitors earned seven medals.

Amelia Brohman, who followed up her appearance at the Games with a trip to the Pan American junior championships in Colombia, snagged gold in the 200 m dash and followed it up with a pair of bronze medals in

the 100 m and 4x400 m relay.

“I was really happy with my per-f o r m a n c e , ” recounts Broh-man, who also came home with a silver medal from the 4x100 m relay in Colombia. “My goal was to just run hard, give it everything I’ve got and try to get on the po-dium.”

A major highlight of the

meet for Brohman was seeing her two other CANI teammates – 400 m hurd-lers and Team Ontario 4x400 relay members Saj Alhaddad and Chanel Marion – win medals as well.

“They succeeded and did what they had to do in their individual event and then came back and medaled in their relays as well,” Brohman high-lights. “It was amazing seeing my teammates succeed like that after such a long and hard season.”

2 INDIVIDUALS DOUBLE-MEDAL

Cyclist Matteo Dal-Cin, 21, was a double-medal-ist, placing first in the individual time trial and taking silver in the road race, finishing with an identical time as the winner.

“When I found out I was leading the time trial from my Dad after I fin-ished my ride, I was beyond ex-cited,” recounts the Stevens Ra-cing P/B The Cyclery team member. “And it was all that much more spe-cial to be able to

share it with my father and sister who were at the event watching.”

Dal-Cin narrowly missed out on a second gold in the road race after he and a rider from Team Quebec broke away from the pack for the final stages of the race.

“In the end the race was settled in a sprint which he won, and because it was a sprint the timing was close enough that we were shown as cross-ing together,” notes Dal-Cin, who is currently over in Europe for the fi-nal stages of his competitive season, which includes a trip to the Franco-

phone Games Sept. 6-15 in Nice.Eli Wall of the Greater Ottawa

Kingfish – the lone local swimmer at the Canada Games – was also a double-medalist in individual com-petitions, winning silver in the 100 m and bronze in the 50 m breaststroke.

“I was pretty pleased,” says the 18-year-old Colonel By Secondary School graduate and future Univer-sity of Toronto student. “It was a long summer. Usually I don’t go that late into August, so I was happy I was able to keep focused.”

Andre Pelletier of the Ottawa Rowing Club was another top per-former, capturing double-gold in quadruple and double sculls event.

With a gold in men’s foil and a bronze in the team event, Alastair Keyes led the five-member Ottawa Fencing contingent in their parade to podium as his club earned six medals in total.

Corey Johnson and Glenn Thelemaque were part of a dominant Team Ontario basketball perform-ance. Johnson hit four three-pointers in the first quarter as Ontario built a 29-10 lead en route to a 93-49 gold medal game victory over Manitoba.

See sidebar for the full list of Ottawa’s Canada Games medalists.

40 Ottawa athletes win 54 medals for Ontario at Canada GamesBy Brendan McConnell

Maddie Schmidt won bronze for Canada at the world junior canoe-kayak championships a week before earning five more medals at the Canada Games.

photo: digital sports photography

OTTAWA AT THE CANADA SUMMER GAMES

Corey Johnson & Glenn Thelemaquegold basketball

Megan Sibthorpegold canoe-kayak C-4 500, gold C-4 200, gold C-2 500, silver C-2 5,000

Maddie Schmidtgold canoe-kayak K-1 500, silver K-2 200, silver K-2 5,000, silver K-4 200, bronze K-4 500

Drew Hodgesgold canoe-kayak C-1 5,000, silver C-1 1,000, silver C-4 1,000, bronze C-4 200

André Pelletiergold rowing double sculls, gold quad-ruple sculls

Matteo Dal-Cingold road cycling individual time trial, silver road race

Amelia Brohmangold track 200, bronze 100, bronze 4x400 relay

Samantha Klusgold triathlon mixed relay, bronze women’s relay

Devin Biocchigold track 4x400 relay, bronze 400

Saj Alhaddadgold track 4x400 relay, silver 400 hurdles

Theresa El-Latigold wrestling team, bronze 65 kg

Alastair Keyesgold fencing foil, bronze team foil

Eli Wallsilver swimming 100 breaststroke, bronze 50 breast-stroke

Matthew Christiesilver rowing single sculls

Evan McNeelysilver mountain bike men’s relay

Natalie Davisonsilver canoe- kayak K-2 200, silver K-4 200

Matthew Ianni silver baseball

Brendan Fowlersilver C-4 1,000, bronze C-2 200

Alexandra Joysilver canoe- kayak K-1 5,000, bronze K-4 500

Joseph Wrightsilver fencing team epee

Elizabeth Turnersilver rowing 8

Zacharie Cameron(Quebec)silver canoe- kayak K-2 1,000, bronze K-2 5,000

Jenny Zhaobronze fencing foil, bronze team foil

Aaron Wong-Singbronze sailing 2.4 para mix

Jordan Lundin, Vanessa Gilles & Miranda Smithbronze soccer

Chanel Marionbronze track 400 m hurdles, bronze 4x400 m relay

François Provencherbronze fencing team foil

Tom Sherwin (Manitoba)bronze canoe- kayak C-1 500, bronze C-1 1,000, bronze C-1 5,000

Sara Robichaud(Quebec)bronze beach volleyball

Malick Turenne(Quebec)bronze basketball

OTTAWA’S 2013 CANADA GAMES MEDALISTS

Megan Sibthorpe of the Rideau Ca-noe Club won the most gold medals out of Ottawa athletes, with 3.

file photo

“It was always a huge goal to be able to do what he did and I did a lot of my training with him,” the St. Peter Catholic High School product signals. “It’s been a big factor looking up to him.”

Belanger and Krausbar, who both play for the Ottawa Irish, also won at the U18 level. The Ontario team dominated in their five wins en route to gold, the closest game being the final: a 25-5 victory. Both players credit their success to their coaches.

“Our training is really in-tense,” Krausbar highlights. “We had to perfect everything we did right down to the little details.”

Belanger agrees.“It comes down to the hard

work of our coaches,” she says. “They trained us hard and made sure we knew everything we had to. They had a huge impact on how our team performed.”

Both women had the same comments about how it feels to win the gold medal, saying that it’s good to know that all their hard work can pay off.

All three gold medalists have set the same goals for themselves in their rugby careers: playing for Canada. Krausbar and Shaw hope to play for the red and white next season, while Belanger is headed to York University to play for the Lions in CIS women’s

rugby, but is striving to dress for Canada within the next two years.

Also competing at the national festival from Ottawa were Sarah His-cock and Morgan Vallati, silver medalists in U16 women’s.

Mason Dingwall, playing for Ontario-3, was the leading scorer in the U18 men’s tourna-ment, as his team won the second-tier Plate final.

In Canada, “hockey” always refers to and is synonymous with ice hockey. That’s not the case in most the world, where “hockey” usually means Cana-dians’ field hockey, a prominent sport in more than 50 countries across the globe.

While field hockey is never likely to eclipse ice hockey and claim the singular form of the name for itself in Canada, the game is starting to build a strong tradition in the great white north.

Fair-weathered British Columbia has always been the field hockey fore-runner since the sport began its jour-

ney in Canada, followed decidedly by Ontario.

Similarly, on a smaller scale, Ottawa has traditionally played second fiddle well behind Toronto in Ontario, but a group of five players from the Nepean Nighthawks club have helped to make big changes on both those fronts.

Braedon Muldoon, 16, Dylan Singh, 15, Rohan Chopra, 16, Connor Baird, 15, and Marek Chopra, 14, com-peted for Team Ontario in August’s U16 national championships in Brampton.

Ontario Red won each of their preliminary round games minus a tie versus B.C. and then took the gold medal with a 1-0 victory in the rematch

against their western foes in the tourna-ment final.

The Nighthawks were a big part of Team Ontario, contributing more pro-vincial team members than any other club in the province – a groundbreaking feat, notes Sandeep Chopra, a passion-ate former player cum guide cum coach cum backbone organizer for the sport in Ottawa.

“Five players from Nepean Nighthawks,” smiles the Nighthawks founder who started with 10 players in the club just four years ago and now has over 200. “It proves that Ottawa is becoming a real hub of field hockey in Ontario.”

4

In the rowing world, the highest honour that a club can bestow upon an athlete is naming a boat after them.

The Ottawa Rowing Club may be a bit busy in the paintjob department this fall thanks to the performances of their athletes at the Aug. 25-Sept. 1 World Rowing Championships in Chungju, Korea.

With five female Ottawa Row-ing Club athletes on race sheets for the worlds – which made up almost half of Team Canada – international athletes were given a healthy dose of our national capital hometown row-ing talent, and they didn’t disappoint, collecting three sets of medals for Canadian crews.

Sarah Black, an Ottawa native who began rowing in Grade 9 at Elm-wood School, took home silver and bronze medals from the women’s 4 and 8 events, each time trailing the dominant team from the United States.

Black celebrated her 24th birth-day the same day she won silver in the 4 race, where Canada powered past a strong Australian crew for sil-ver.

“We talked about taking it more aggressively off the start in the first 400 or 500 metres than we did in the previous race and I think we ex-

ecuted that really well,” Black said in a Rowing Canada news release. “It felt great.”

Goodfellow, who got her start in the sport just four years ago with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees row-ing club, earned a bronze in the Aug. 31 quadruple sculls event – Canada’s first at the world level in the Olympic

discipline since the 1990s.“We stuck to our race plan,”

Goodfellow said via Rowing Canada. “We knew we had contact with Ger-many early on but in the end they were just too quick.”

OTTAWA CLUB DRAWS FROM AFAR

Apart from Black and Good-

fellow, Team Canada also featured double-silver medalist Cristy Nurse (Georgetown, Ont.), as well as wo-men’s 8 medalist Carolyn Ganes (Saskatoon, SK) and 8 alternate Rosie DeBoef (Victoria, B.C.) – all transplanted out-of-towners who moved to the Ottawa Rowing Club in recent years.

“It’s a tremendous inspiration for all the other rowers and coaches,” says Ottawa Rowing Club president Lana Burpee, who already named boats after both Black and Goodfel-low last year on the heels of a world record-setting performance at the U23 worlds two seasons ago.

Burpee credits the athletes’ in-credibly strong work ethic for their success, along with dedicated coaches at ORC and one of the strongest train-ing programs offered in Canada.

“I think it’s a combination of a lot of things that are going right at the Ottawa Rowing Club,” she indicates. “Basically we have a history of row-ing, we have exceptional coaches that dedicate a lot of their time, we have good water and we have excellent ra-cing opportunities.”

ELITEOttawa Rowing Club women help Canada to 3 worlds medals

By Brendan McConnell

photo provided

Melanie McCann won NORCECA con-tinental bronze and her third national gold in a row leading up to worlds.

ORC’s Sarah Black (left) and Cristy Nurse (right) won silver in the women’s 4.

photos: penta press for rowing canada aviron

By Arvind Katyal

5 Nighthawks players’ nationals triumph a major moment for Ottawa field hockeycontinued from p.2

RUGBY: Team Canada in sight

Kate Goodfellow won quad silver.

photo provided

John Shaw

(From left) Dylan Singh, Braedon Muldoon, Rohan Chopra, Connor Baird and Marek Chopra.

5

It’s great to be a girl. Sisters, mothers and daugh-ters, and friends playing together is what Girls n’ Women and Sport (GWS) is all about. A unit of City of Ottawa Parks, Recreation, and Culture, GWS is mandated to provide fun, safe, and nurturing sport and physical activity opportunities for girls and women in female-only programs. Starting as young as age 4, girls can join preschool FUNdamental Movements pro-grams – a great start to an active life that emphasizes running, throwing, jumping, catching, balance, and more. Are you ready for the next step? Learn to Train programs will help you consolidate your skills and start applying them in a specific sport environment.

For adults we offer leagues and programs to suit the needs of the brand new participant as well as the more seasoned athlete. Volleyball, basketball, indoor

soccer, and ball hockey leagues are waiting for you to join, whether as a team or as an individual. What sets us apart? Our “Everyone gets to play” philosophy and our leagues have referees!

GWS loves to encourage female leadership in sport – that’s why we aim to mentor and train female coaches for all of our development programs. GWS commits to going the extra mile to make your experience one that inspires sport and physical activity participation for life.

Get your questions answered by our courteous and friendly office staff who can give you extra information about programs plus help you register. Visit our web-sites ottawa.ca/sports or citywidesportsottawa.ca or call us at 613-580-2854.

Jump into sport with us this fall! All female classes where Everyone Gets to Play!

Everyone gets to play! with Girls ’n Women and Sport

Two local racquet-sport athletes are harbouring Olympic dreams, but they’ll each face unique paths and obstacles to get there.

Ottawa native Gabri-ela Dabrowski, 21, is com-ing off the biggest win of her young pro tennis career, while 22-year-old Sam Cornett is clambering up towards the top of the world squash rankings. Reaching the pinnacle of inter-national sport would be a land-mark for both burgeoning pros.

Dabrowski will be vying for a berth at the next Summer Olympics – slated for 2016 in Rio de Janeiro – along with her regular doubles partner, Toron-to-born Sharon Fichman. To guarantee their place, they’ll both need to reach the top-60 in world doubles rankings. Dabrowski is currently slot-ted 67th internationally, while Fichman is ranked 90th.

“If Sharon and I could qualify for the Olympics… you dream of these things,” Dabrowski underlines. “If you happen to be the best team in your country, you can go for your country. We have a few years to get our rankings higher.”

Their performance at last month’s Rogers Cup in Toronto was a significant step towards attaining that goal. Unseeded to start the tourna-ment, Dabrowski and Fichman reached the semi-finals and pulled off the week’s biggest upset – a quarterfinal win over Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, the world #1 doubles team and both top-10 seeds in singles.

“I honestly felt comfort-able in the match,” Dabrowski recounts. “I didn’t feel like they were putting a lot of pres-sure on us, which means that we were so solid that they couldn’t really hurt us with anything that they had that

day.”Though Dabrowski ac-

knowledged that Errani and Vinci were fatigued on the day of their match, her cohesion with Fichman has been crucial to their recent success. Their physical strengths balance out – Dabrowski has a stronger serve, while Fichman is a bet-ter returner. The two have also developed a rapport that ex-tends to all facets of a match.

“We work well together. We sense what the other one needs – if they need to be pumped up, or a little bit of time to relax and regroup,” Dabrowski explains. “If we’re out of position, we find a way to get back in the point and sometimes counterpunch and take control, even when we were defending.”

A product of the Ottawa Athletic Club, Dabrowski is midway through her third year of full-time competition on the WTA Tour, after starting out as

A tale of 2 rising racquet stars

By Nick Faris

COMMUNITY CLUBS

Both in their early 20s, tennis player Dabrowski & squash athlete Cornett are strong Canadian Olympic team prospects, but Cor-nett still needs the green light from the IOC to include her sport

a junior in pro tournaments at age 14. For now, she’s hoping to qualify for all four tennis Grand Slams in 2014. Though she’s still somewhat focused on singles play, her doubles career has simply been more enjoyable, she notes, and could offer her ticket to an Olympics.

“You can still make a really good career out of doubles,” Dabrowski highlights.

Cornett, meanwhile, al-ways competes alone, but her long-term objective is part of a much wider movement.

Born in Deep River, she moved to Ottawa at age 9, liv-ing and training here until turn-ing pro at 18. Since then, she’s worked her way up the interna-tional squash rankings, earning a career-high world ranking of

33rd shortly after winning the Canadian Squash Champion-ships in May.

Understanding the phys-ical and mental traits required to excel professionally have been central to her progress, Cornett signals, noting that she’s currently looking to im-prove her overall presence on the court.

“I’m starting to get to a point where it’s taken me up a level in my squash game,” she details.

With a long-term object-ive of #1 in the world in mind, Cornett is more immediately concerned with cracking the top-25. An Olympic berth is another goal – but it’s not as simple as attaining a ranking.

On Sept. 7, the Interna-

tional Olympic Committee will meet to add a new sport to the 2020 Summer Olympics. Squash is one of three candid-ates, along with wrestling and a joint baseball and softball bid.Cornett has played a part in the grassroots “Vote for Squash” campaign, with the intention of catapulting their sport onto the world’s largest athletic stage.

“Even if we don’t get into the Olympics, I think every-one has been working so hard to raise the profile of squash that it can’t be ignored,” she says. “If I could work towards an Olympic event, it just takes everything up a notch – every-one’s working that much harder, because we all know there’s such a huge opportun-ity at stake.”

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building blocks for life.

NOT SKILLS.

With the memory of a successful homegrown 2013 Canadian Gymnastics Cham-pionships fading slowly along with the summer sun, Ottawa has reason to be excited again as the new gymnastics season approaches, with the city hav-ing claimed its spot as host for the second year in a row.

Set for May 26-31, the 2014 national championships will again welcome gymnasts from across the country at Carleton University, a venue that proved to provide an ex-cellent environment for the elite gymnasts, notes compet-ition chair and Ottawa Gym-nastics Centre general man-ager Kellie Hinnells.

“Athletes and coaches all enjoyed the facilities, our volunteers were very friendly and organized and the event generated profit,” recalls Hin-nells, adding that the on-site housing, training and meal venues all cut down travel time significantly, thus mak-ing it easier for athletes to fo-cus on their events.

With the familiar Ravens

Nest and fieldhouse decked out with top-level gymnastics equipment, spectator bleach-ers and judges stands, Car-leton athletics took on a whole new look during the competi-tion last year – an atmosphere that organizers hope to repeat and improve upon in 2014.

One change for the com-ing championships is the date – they’ll take place one week later than last year so that there is no conflict with Ott-awa Race Weekend, explains Hinnells, noting the event will be condensed to a speedy seven days as opposed to last year’s 10 days.

The competition will also receive much more advanced

promotion in the Ottawa and gymnastics communities in hopes of drawing in more curious spectators, she adds.

The 2014 Championships will be run by Gymnastics Canada in conjunction with the same four local host clubs as last year – OGC, Tum-blers, Gatineau’s Unigym and Kanata Rhythmic.

Each of those clubs are expected to have athletes compete in their hometown, says Hinnells. Last year, 10 Ottawa gymnasts competed at nationals, with many earn-ing medals, led by National Capital’s Sam Zakutney, the Tyro high-performance class all-around champion.

COMMUNITY CLUBSGymnastics nationals to return to OttawaBy Brendan McConnell

file photo: steve kingsman

Make the Nepean Hotspurs Soccer Club your choice!

Winter Registration starts Sept. 1. Don’t miss out!

The Hotspurs are pleased to offer programs for all ages and skill levels.For more information, call 613-723-5762

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Developing players and the “Beautiful Game”

National Capital’s Sam Zakutney won three consecutive all-around national titles in the Argo and Tyro youth age categories. He’ll now get to make his nationals Junior debut in Ottawa next May.

7

Things move at lightning speed in the Ottawa boxing world. One minute you’re an amateur boxer in Manitoba, the next you’re fighting inter-national stars in preparation for a run at the world title.

While it may sound like the plot to a film by Martin Scorsese, this is the reality for local boxing professional Andy Gardiner who, just last May, made the move to Ottawa to train under Final Round Boxing coach Eric Belanger at his gym in Chin-atown.

“I’m really happy with my progression so far,” says 25-year old Gardiner, who started boxing at 16 in Winnipeg. “I feel like I’ve improved a lot.”

After meeting a cross-roads in his teens where he had to choose between hockey and boxing, Gardiner went the fisticuffs route and now finds himself on the verge of com-peting alongside world title contenders. A good perform-ance in his Sept. 6 bout during the Fight Club Series event at Casino Lac Leamy could lead to big opportunities.

Belanger, who took Gardiner into his house when he first moved to Ottawa, has worked to build off of the young boxer’s strengths to make sure that when his world title shot comes, he goes all the way to the top.

“Andy’s strengths are something that I can’t teach,” Gardiner notes. “You can hit

him in the head with a Volvo and he’ll keep coming. He’s very dedicated and very tough and he’s in great shape.”

Gardiner, who competes in the light heavyweight class, will be going up against Pol-ish fighter Michal Nieroda, who recently took on the current world champion. To prepare, Gardiner has three workouts per day, six days per week, where he works on everything from technique to power to endurance.

Apart from his ability to take a punch and keep going, Belanger says that Gardiner is one of the most disciplined fighters he has come across, which is essential to progress-ing to the sport’s top levels.

“A big part of it is life-style,” Belanger explains. “Being a pro fighter is not easy at all — if you want to make it, you’ve got to make a lot of sacrifices.”

That level of training does

not even allow room for a soft drink, he adds.

“The regular life enjoy-ments that most people get to enjoy, he doesn’t,” Belanger highlights. “Finding someone who’s actually disciplined enough to do that is quite rare no matter how much talent they have.”

In the short term, Gardiner is setting his sights on a North American title early next year – the Fight Club Series being a key helping hand in that pursuit. But, both coach and athlete agree that neither will be happy until that title belt is around Gardiner’s waist.

“I want to make it to the top,” Gardiner emphasizes. “There are several guys with belts right now and I want them all.”

Final Round’s Samer Barakat was also slated to compete on the Sept. 8 card, making his pro debut against Canadian Denis Martin.

It was a difficult, bitter-sweet moment, but it’s been a busy year for Christina Julien since she narrowly missed out on a spot with the bronze medal-winning Canadian wo-men’s soccer team at the Lon-don 2012 Olympics.

Most recently, the former Ottawa Fury W-League player surged with the Laval Comètes to the league finals, defeating her old team for the first time ever in the conference finals before dropping the champion-ship match 1-0 on an own goal.

Before the Olympics, Julien was playing with Gothenburg-based Jitex BK in Sweden’s highest league.

“There was a lot to do, a lot to see,” recalls Julien, who now splits her time living in Corn-

wall and Montreal, adding that she would be very interested in returning to the team again. “It was my first time going over-seas, so it was a really exciting experience.”

After playing alongside Christine Sinclair and the rest of Team Canada through the Olympics qualifiers, Julien was sidelined just before the Olympics began. Although she was forced to watch the team win a bronze medal from the bench as a non-playing al-ternate, Julien says she was very happy to be a part of the Olympic experience.

“It was bittersweet some-times, but that group of girls changed soccer in Canada,” re-marks the Fury youth academy grad. “It was an amazing feat and I’m so happy that I was there to witness it and be a part

of it. They made me feel like I was part of the team the en-tire time; I just didn’t get the chance to step on the field.”

Despite strong perform-ances throughout the qualify-ing matches, Julien was a last-minute cut from an Olympic squad that took only four strikers to London – she was the fifth.

“There were a couple of things that led to my non-selec-tion,” Julien explains. “About a week before, I found out that my hamstring was partially torn but I could still play on it. I was also coming out of resid-ency from playing in Sweden so I wasn’t connecting with their goals as much as I should have been.

“Looking back on it, there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but it is what

it is, and you learn from it, you grow and become a better per-son and move on.”

Following Team Canada’s Olympic run, Julien spent some time in Montreal at a rehabilit-ation and training center in or-der to treat her torn hamstring, which led her to join nearby for this past W-League season.

With her hamstring now healed, the Olympics behind her and a string of successes in Europe and the W-League in the books, the 25-year-old is now setting her sights on the 2015 Women’s World Cup. FIFA officials visited Ottawa and the other Canadian host cit-ies in August, marking the two-year countdown to the event Julien would love to be a part of on home soil.

“There’s a lot of motiva-tion,” says Julien, who’s set a

ELITEJulien resets sights on 2015 World Cup

photo: brendan mcconnell

Melanie McCann won NORCECA con-tinental bronze and her third national gold in a row leading up to worlds.

Final Round boxer emerges as world title threat

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goal to play in the National Women’s Soccer League for the next three seasons. “I know I have a lot to give there – I’ve spent the past 10 years of my life working towards soccer and bettering my career. So come the next Olympics and World Cup, I’m going to be in

The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is just two years away from coming to Canada and Ottawa, and local product Christina Julien plans to be there.

file photo

By Brendan McConnell

my prime and I’m going to do everything possible I can to get

there. If I’m not, then I know I gave it my best.”

photo: dan plouffe

Final Round Boxing’s Andy Gardiner is making quick strides towards a possible world title fight.

8

When there’s turmoil at home, it’s hard to make sports a priority. That’s the challenge facing 28-year-old hammer thrower Sultana Frizell, who continues to compete on the world stage while helping care for her mother.

Frizell was enjoying some down time after a successful 2012 season. In March, the Ottawa Lions athlete from Perth shattered the Canadian hammer throw record by almost three metres, with a 75.04 m throw at an event in Arizona. And in August, she competed at her second Olympic Games in London.

But in October 2012, Frizell’s world changed forever when her mother suffered an aneurysm. She fell into a coma and was hos-pitalized for seven weeks. Suddenly, hammer throwing, which had been Frizell’s passion since she discovered the sport at age 15, was the fur-thest thing from her mind.

“It really looked like she wasn’t going to make it,” Frizell recalled.

She left the national throws training centre in Kamloops, B.C. to move back to the Ottawa area to be closer to her parents. As an only child, Frizell wanted to support her father as they made difficult decisions about her mother’s care.

Given how tough things were at home, Frizell questioned whether she would ever re-turn to the sport she loved. It seemed inappro-priate to train full-time when her mother was

fighting for her life.“I had a pretty good heart-to-heart with one

of my mom’s girlfriends,” Frizell said. “She was like, ‘Do you know how much time and effort your mom put in taking you to all these f---ing track meets and being there for you? Do you think she would want you to quit sport?’”

“That’s true. She’d probably kick me in my ass [if I quit].”

Frizell decided around Christmas last year that she would return to serious training. But not without major adjustments – Frizell now

practices on her own in Ottawa, thousands of miles away from her national team coach and Canada’s other top hammer throwers.

“Trying to figure out how to juggle training and family and the emotional roller coaster that was happening – and is happening – with my mom was quite difficult,” Frizell noted.

She wasn’t sure if she’d make the Canadian team for August’s World Championships, but she did.

Frizell’s performance at the Aug. 10-18 event in Moscow may have been underwhelm-ing – her 69.06 m throw was well off her per-sonal-best to miss the final round by 1.41 m and place 16th overall. But given her personal situation, and the fact that she injured her back

while training in Sweden before the worlds, her performance was understandable.

“You’re not really going in there thinking all your hopes and dreams are based on these three throws,” she said. “But at the end of the day, there is really only one meet that really counts in the year. Unfortunately, that’s the name of the game, and I guess that’s what makes it exciting as well. I wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but I gave it all I had.”

Four other athletes with Ottawa connections represented Canada at the World Champion-ships. Melissa Bishop finished 23rd in the 800 m and Alicia Brown was 30th in the 400 m.

After a heartbreaking disqualification where the Canadian men’s 4x100 m relay team briefly thought they’d won a bronze medal at the Lon-don 2012 Olympics, the tables were turned at the 2013 worlds. It looked as though Canada had placed fourth until Great Britain got DQed and they were elevated to the podium.

“I’m so ecstatic, especially thinking back to last year and what happened,” Gavin Smellie, who recently began training with the Lions, said in an Athletics Canada news release. “To come back and get bronze, I’m just so happy. (...) This isn’t just for us, it’s for everybody, we’re going to take these medals home and show them to our families, share them with all of Canada.”

Ottawa native Segun Makinde was a relay alternate in both London and Moscow.

At the Aug. 9-11 Canadian Youth Track-and-Field Championships in Langley, B.C., Alexandra Tierney of CANI Athletics was the capital’s top performer, winning double gold in both the 100 and 300 m hurdles.

Mother’s aneurysm challenges hammer thrower FrizellBy David Karp

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The Ottawa Lions’ Sultana Frizell placed 16th in the women’s hammer throw at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow.

9

Any team that’s lost a game in penalty kicks knows there isn’t much else that’s more heartbreak-ing in sports. But how about going through 24 shooters before finally falling in the championship final?

That’s the type of cruel fate that can stick in your mind for a long time, says Brooklynn Seatter. For the Nepean Hotspurs U17 Level 3 striker, the memory from the U15 girls’ East Region Cup final two years ago was still present when her squad returned to the championship game at the U17/18 level on Aug. 18 at Walter Baker field in Kanata.

“I don’t know if everyone else remembered that, but for me at least, I knew we had to score some goals from the beginning so we didn’t have to worry about doing that at the end,” Seatter explains.

Add to that the fact that their op-ponents, the West Ottawa Warriors U18 Level 4 girls, had won their two previous games in penalty kicks to reach the final, and the impetus was

strong not to let the game reach the shootout.

So, the Hotspurs flew out to a 4-0 lead by half-time against a short-staffed Warrior side that also lost their goalkeeper to injury in the first half, and cruised on to a 6-0 final victory. Seatter netted three goals, Marisa Seary scored two, and Cas-sandra Yanez-Leyton got one.

“I’m so excited. I’m so proud of us,” smiles Seatter, noting it was particularly special since the team’s core group, which includes numer-ous U16 age players, has been to-gether for three years.

“We all work together and we know each other really well,” she adds. “We’re like one big group of friends. It’s a lot of fun to be on the team.”

Another motivator for the Hot-spurs was to perform well for sev-eral players who went down to in-jury earlier this season.

“The girls were playing really, really hard for some of their team-mates,” notes Nepean coach Francis Onyalo, whose 7-6 squad placed in

league play. “They’re a really close-knit group. They all work together, and they spend a lot of time together. They’re not just friends on the field, but off the field as well.”

Despite the sound defeat, win-ning three knockout games to reach the Cup championship was a nice accomplishment for the Warriors in their last season of youth soccer.

“I’m still proud of them. They did well to get there,” signals West Ottawa coach Bruce Hartill. “They’re going to miss each other and playing together. They’re all go-ing off to university, but hopefully when they come back in the spring, they’ll want to get together and play women’s competitive.”

It was an all-Cumberland affair in the boys’ U17/18 ER Cup final, as the U18 Level 4 Cobras prevailed 1-0 over their U17 Level 3 clubmates thanks to a goal by Justin Tilley. The Cobras counterparts went tit-fot-tat in Round 2 and the semi-finals, both earning 3-0 victories in each case.

The ER Cup finals for the U13 to U16 groups go Sept. 15 in Kemptville.

Major redemption for Nepean in Cup win

By Dan Plouffe

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The Nepean Hotspurs erased the memory of a 24-shooter penalty kicks championship final defeat two seasons ago with a 6-0 triumph over the West Ottawa Warriors to win the U17/18 girls’ East Region Cup.

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OSU U16 boys near OYSL & Ontario Cup doubleThe Ottawa South United Force U16 boys’

team’s remarkable undefeated record against pro-vincial opponents in Ontario Youth Soccer League and Ontario Cup play remains intact heading into mid-September.

“Not necessarily undefeated, but being able to compete for first” was definitely something the team anticipated, says coach Russell Shaw, whose squad sits two points up on second-place Toronto FC with a game in hand thanks to nine wins and five ties.

Including his current group last season, Shaw’s two most recent teams have been in position to take the division crown with a victory in their final game, only to fall short in back-to-back years. He’d rather not wait until the last game to nail down first place this time.

“That’s the hope,” he smiles.The Force U16s also advanced to the Ontario

Cup championship game, as did the OSU U13 girls.—Dan Plouffe

The West Ot-tawa Warriors’ top men’s and women’s com-petitive teams are both 2013 champions in the Ottawa-Car-leton Soccer

League’s first divisions and have earned berths in the Premier league next year.

The Warrior women secured their title with a record of 10 wins, one loss and three ties, while the men wrapped up their champion-ship with a 2-0 victory on Sept. 3 to win the crown by two points.

“To be honest, I felt a lot of pressure because I knew the women’s team had clinched,” says men’s player-manager Gord Macdonald, also WOSC’s multi-sport pro-gram coordinator. “It’s been a little bit com-petitive in the office.”

Many West Ottawa Soccer Club staff play on the men’s and women’s sides. After four wins, three losses and a tie to start, it didn’t have the look of a championship season early on for the Warrior men, but with some daily encouragement from his female col-leagues, Macdonald’s men posted nine wins and a tie the rest of the way.

“We added a bunch of new, young players to our group. It took a little time to gel and get to know each other,” notes Macdonald, highlighting support from the club and the U21 side led by Wade Washington as major keys to winning the title.

“This was our best team to date,” he adds. “The future looks bright, and we are ex-cited about the opportunity to represent the western half of Ottawa next year in men’s Premier.”

The Warrior lineups feature a number of players with highly impressive soccer re-sumes. The men’s leading scorer was Rob Murphy – a former Canadian university play-er-of-the-year who missed part of the sea-son while competing for Canada at the FISU World University Games – while former Aus-tralian professional academy member Corey Herrington recorded five shutouts in goal.

WOSC representative and winter coordin-ator Heather Ambery gets to boast that she was level in goals scored with former Ca-nadian women’s national team player and

WOSC head coach Kristina Kiss at four markers, behind women’s leading scorer Sophie Lecot-Hearn’s seven.

“To be honest, I think three of those four goals were crosses from Kristina directly onto my head and I did not have to move an inch,” Ambery laughs. “But if we both had four goals, I will be sure to tell her about that.”

More than clowning with co-workers, both squads were fueled by a desire to give future players a chance to play at the highest level locally once they graduate from youth ranks.

“It gives the youngsters something to look forward to,” highlights Ambery, who didn’t know her current Premier league existed when she was younger. “I think it’s really important for our players to see that there are opportunities after youth soccer. WOSC is building a great program for its adult players that not only prepares them for uni-versity-calibre play, but it also allows them to play at a competitive level long after their youth soccer days.”

Other notable WOSC staff contributions came from WOSC Micro Program Coordin-ator Cathy Briggs, one of three women’s goalkeepers to record a shutout, while Club Lead Coach Kyle Washington was an asset to the men’s side with his coaching wisdom.

Reaching the Premier division was a spe-cial moment for Macdonald’s father, Ian, who coached the team from its roots before it even wore Warriors colours up to last year.

“It’s been a long journey since the team com-menced with the Fitzroy SC,” he notes. “Those who brought us here will not be forgotten.”

West Ottawa Soccer ScoopWarrior men & women carry on winning tradition into adult years

photo: dan plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

10

SportsOttawa.com has September’s Doc Hockey Corner column by Dr. Shayne Baylis.

EDITORIAL

902 Pinecrest Rd. Ottawa, Ont.

K2B 6B3

The Ottawa Sportspage is printed on the first Tuesday of the month by Ottawa Sports Media, the locally-owned and operated publisher of the Ottawa Sportspage newspaper & SportsOttawa.com. Local sports news from high schools, universities, community clubs and elite amateur sport is the name of our game. We’re at The Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community.

Editor: Dan Plouffe613-261-5838

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Team of the Month: Rideau Canoe Club Trillium Championships TeamAbout: The Rideau Canoe Club earned earned the overall Trillium Championships title when they hosted the under-15 and under-13 provincial canoe-kayak championships in mid-August. Numerous athletes won medals in their individual and crew boat events, although a major highlight was seeing three Rideau Canoe Club war canoe teams take off from the Mooney’s Bay docks in the same race, which involved a total of 42 14- and 15-year-old boys and girls, plus three coaches/coxswains. Maddison Darcyl’s crew were the provincial champs in the C-15 200-metre mixed bantam event, while Andres Carranco’s boys’ crew also won a medal, taking silver by less than half-a-second in the bantam boys’ 500 m.

Athlete of the Month: Nick GorgichukSport: Football

Club: Myers Riders

About: Myers Riders quarterback Nick Gorgichuk was game MVP, throwing 3 touchdown passes and 434 total yards as his team beat Niagara 42-20 to capture the club’s first-ever Ontario Varsity Football League championship Aug. 17. Gorgichuk rewrote the record books this season, earning the highest QB rating in league history (258.6), highest pass completion rate (76%), most total yards in a season (2,981) and in a game (580), and most passing TDs in a season (44) and a game (7). The St. Mark Catholic High School grad also appeared in the Carleton Ravens’ first match in his new school’s return to university football.

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 Na-tional 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.

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11

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Playing in the national championship tournament in just their first year of existence, the Capital Region Axemen opened their Presidents Cup competition with a 13-12 victory over Onondaga, but were defeated in each of their next 5 matches at the Aug. 26-Sept. 1 event. Nepean minor lacrosse grad Callum Crawford opened the scoring for the host Kahnawake Mohawks in the championship game and assisted on all of his team’s other 4 goals, but fell short 8-5 to St. Catherines.

photo: dean joncas

Putting in the hours of training is the key to success in any sport – a lesson 15-year-old Connor Byway, who walked away with two first-place finishes in the cadet division at the Aug. 27-Sept. 1 Canadian track cycling championships, learned quickly just two years into his com-petitive cycling career.

“The main thing is to just train and never stop,” explains the Grade 11 Earl of March Secondary School student. “If you don’t, then other people that are training almost every day will start beating you.”

Byway won gold medals in the omnium and individual pursuit un-der-17 nationals events at the Dieppe Velodrome in New Brunswick.

“It felt really good,” Byway adds. “I put in all the training this past winter – I was in the basement pretty much every day (on my bike). It wasn’t very fun but it was good because I was looking forward to doing well during the season.”

The national track champion-ships — where he also won silver in kilo event — added an extra touch on an already impressive season for Byway. The Ottawa Bicycle Club’s 15 km time trial record holder

smashed several benchmarks this season, including the London Velo-drome’s 1 km cadet track record pre-viously held by fellow Ottawa cyc-list Alex Cataford, now a member of the Garneau-Quebecor pro cycling team. Byway’s blistering 1 minute, 5 second mark also surpassed the Lon-don track’s junior record previously held by 2012 Olympian Joe Veloce.

The summer of 2013 also saw Byway place third at the national road cycling championships in Lac Megantic, just weeks before the now

infamous train disaster that ravaged the town. Byway closed out the competition on the last day by tak-ing first place in the final stage.

RIDES SISTER’S BIKE TO PODIUM

To top it off, Byway also placed third on points at the 5-stage Tour of Rimouski — the largest competition for the cadet level in North Amer-ica — and first amongst Canadians. That despite the fact that a fender bender on Hwy. 401 en route to the competition damaged his bike, ne-

cessitating the use of his sister’s in its place.

Byway, who turns 16 in September, began his cycling career the opposite way that many athletes start theirs – he began as a triathlete and then switched his focus to the one sport.

“I wasn’t doing that well at triathlon but the cycling part I was doing really well at, which kind of de-feats the purpose of do-ing triathlon,” Byway laughs.

Byway on highway to top of Canadian cyclingBy Brendan McConnell

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BYWAY cont. on p.14

OSU Force Academy ZoneA trio of

Ottawa South United Force soccer play-ers got to live out a young p l a y e r ’ s

dream in August as they spent a week train-ing at the fabled Real Madrid academy in Spain. David Chung, Ryan Massoud and Matteo de Brienne were three of 30 players who made the trip with the Dallas Texans, OSU’s affiliate club in the southern U.S.

“To say they were in awe would be an un-derstatement,” says OSU General Manager Jim Lianos. “They were training on the same pitch where people in the academy trained to be in the Champions League, in a profes-sional environment. It’s unbelievable.”

The OSU players were identified for the opportunity by the Texans’ director – Chung and Massoud while playing at the Disney Jr. Showcase, and during visits to Ottawa in the case of 11-year-old de Brienne, who is two years younger than his Force counterparts.

“I was so glad they picked me,” de Brienne highlights. “It was a big opportunity. I was very fortunate to have this experience. The training was really amazing.”

de Brienne received some pointers from Chung on what to expect playing soccer in Europe since Chung had been to Poland the previous summer to play for Canada at the Danone Nations Cup.

“He told me there was going to be a lot of tough competition down there in practices, but he said, ‘Just try your best to get better, and work hard,’” recounts de Brienne, who was happy to have a pair of familiar faces join him for the trip. “It was amazing being

there with my good buds and practicing with them. They’re older than me and they help me get better.”

Spending eight sessions with the same coaches who direct Real Madrid’s youth academy and facing some elite talent was also highly beneficial, de Brienne points out.

“The players there practice more and they’re amazing. They’ve got a lot of skill,” adds the Grade 6 Jean-Robert-Gauthier French Catholic elementary school student. “The players were really good down there and they gave me a lot of competition, which helped me a lot. I enjoyed it so much.”

Another major highlight was getting to see the big-league team play its season-opening La Liga contest at Santiago Bernabéu Sta-dium in front of a crowd of 90,000 fans.

“Everybody was there,” says de Brienne, who’d only seen the storied Madrid franchise play on TV previously. “I never thought I’d get to see them until I was older, but I got the chance at a young age. It was just amazing.”

The OSU trio have already made a big mark locally – each were high-scoring stars for teams that went undefeated in league play – but the chance to see what goes on at one of the globe’s grandest soccer factories helped provide incentive to push on further.

“This was a unique and exclusive oppor-tunity from any player from Canada to be inside the house of the famed Real Madrid soccer club,” Michalopulos notes. “It was a tremendous learning experience for our players, one that they will hopefully use as a motivator for further development.

“We expect that other similar opportunities will become available to OSU players as our plans and actions to develop the best pos-sible soccer players in Ottawa continues.”

Three young OSU Force players train at Real Madrid academy

photo provided

Ottawa’s Connor Byway leads his race at the Canadian track cycling championships in Dieppe, N.B.

Axemen’s 1st-year run ends at lacrosse nationals

Slated to open in time for the 2014-15 hockey season, the Richcraft Sensplex on Shefford Rd. in Gloucester North will bring three additional much-needed ice surfaces to Ot-tawa’s east end.

Ice time is so scarce in the east that the construc-tion schedule was built around keeping Potvin Arena’s existing ice surface open this winter.

“It’s really hard to get ice,” says Beacon Hill/Cyr-ville Councillor and house league hockey coach Tim Tierney, who got to know the problems well when his daughter played in Gloucester. “They couldn’t expand their teams. They had more girls than available ice and teams.”

Tierney is thrilled about the prospect of hosting tournaments at the Sensplex, having the NHL Senators practice there, and bringing jobs to youth and adults alike in Orleans.

“It’s a big win for the east end,” he maintains. “It’s one of the biggest wins we’ve seen here for awhile.”

A new pool also recently opened this summer in Orleans at the François Dupuis Recreation Centre on Portebello Blvd.

The Minto Recre-ation Complex, slated to open in fall 2014 near Greenbank Rd. and Cambrian Dr. in Barrhaven South, will feature 2 NHL size rinks with spectator seating, a 6-lane, 25-metre pool, a full-size gymnasium, multipurpose rooms and studios, fitness facilities and change rooms, and a walking track, plus an artificial turf field outside with lighting. The $52M facility was funded almost entirely from development fees in the surrounding areas.

“It’s truly an amazing project,” says Barrhaven Councillor Jan Harder. “It’s going to absolutely be a community hub.”

Another project coming up in Harder’s ward is im-provements to South Nepean Park’s baseball facilities, including construction of a media centre in advance of the 2015 Canadian Little League championships, to be hosted by the East Nepean Eagles.

“We really stand out when it comes to families and sports,” Harder notes. “I think the fact that we have the variety of sports inside and outside in this community helps explain why more people are moving here than any place else in the city over all of these years.”

RICHCRAFT SENSPLEX

MINTO RECREATION COMPLEX

12

The Ottawa sports com-munity will gain several new ma-jor sports centres in various parts of the city in the near future as sports facility development pro-jects worth hundreds of millions in total come to life.

“There was a real backlog of some of these multi-purpose complexes. We’ve started to play catch-up,” signals Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson. “You’re going to see a fairly aggressive approach with some of these facilities opening in the next few years that will meet the need of both ice time and swim hours.”

One theme that emerges in all the City of Ottawa’s new sports projects is partnerships, or involvement, with private companies.

Of course, there is the high-profile Lans-downe Park redevelopment for football and hockey stadiums. The Ottawa Senators are the driv-ing force behind their second Sen-splex arena project in Gloucester, while new City recreation centres will carry developers’ names when they open in late 2013 (Kanata North’s Richcraft Re-creation Complex) and fall 2014 (Barrhaven South’s Minto Recre-ation Complex). And both local universities also built new foot-ball stands/fields on campus.

In the case of the $52 million Minto centre and the $43M Rich-craft facility, private involvement helped fund enhancements to the City’s original plans.

In Barrhaven, the naming rights will fund construction of a lit, artificial turf field instead of the planned natural surface. Kanata will see a turf field as well thanks to an arrangement with the National Capital Industrial Soc-cer League, which will take out a loan to pay for the $722,000 cost of upgrading to the artificial sur-face in return for field usage over 10 years, details Kanata North

Councillor Marianne Wilkinson.Wilkinson has also led a fun-

draising campaign – involving sales of sculptures in a garden and engraved tiles on the pathway leading to the centre, amongst other initiatives – with an overall $1.75M objective.

“There were a few things the city wouldn’t fund,” Wilkinson explains, listing a larger skate-board park and a devoted youth room as examples. “And the biggest was having an eight-lane pool instead of a six-lane pool.”

SENSPLEX RISES IN EAST

There were also be an east-end facility carrying the Rich-craft name when the Richcraft Sensplex opens in Beacon Hill North next August. The construc-tion of three additional ice pads around Potvin Arena came alive thanks to contributions by the Ottawa Senators.

“It’s a $26 million facility,” notes Beacon Hill/Cyrville Councillor Tim Tierney. “Frankly, if we tried to do this just with capital dollars, first of all, that would pull away from roads, sewers – things that we could be using that capital in-vestment for. (...) If we wanted to do it in the east end, I think we would have been waiting quite a long time.”

Finding private dollars to bring to the table to help construct sports facilities is an increasingly popular route to make projects happen, Mayor Watson indicates.

“We have limited resources. We have to stay within budgets and debt levels,” he says. “Often

the private sector, with their abil-ity to go to the capital markets, can speed up some of these pro-jects.

“At the same time, groups need to understand it’s not just the capital costs. That’s in many ways the easy part. It’s the op-erating costs that you have to be able to budget for. Just because a group says we’ll come and build you an arena doesn’t mean you want to take ownership for that arena.

“By and large, most of these facilities do not make a profit – they’re viewed as a community

service, and they ideally break even, or in some cases, they’re subsidized. We look at projects on a one-off basis, but we wouldn’t have this blanket policy where, ‘if you build it, we’ll oper-

ate it.’

DOME PARTNERSHIPS PAY OFF

One type of partnership that’s proved quite successful involves air-supported sports domes. TMSI Sports Management, which operates the Gloucester and Ben Franklin domes on city land, has enjoyed a “very posit-ive” relationship with the City, says TMSI President Darin Mc-Corriston.

“Quite frankly, we think the City is very forward-thinking in the privatization of some of the recreational areas, which allows increased services,” McCorriston states, noting key benefits such as faster design and construction of facilities, stimulating economic

growth and development, and al-lowing the City to focus money on other projects since private partners are involved in the in-vestment.

“It allocates the risk to the party best equipped to manage it,” he adds. “And it also reflects residents’ priorities.”

ULTIMATE FIELDS GO SOLO

Partnerships involving sports businesses with management ex-pertise has displayed merit, but there are also a few cases where not-for-profit community sports organizations have driven their own facility development pro-jects.

Perhaps the most successful venture without a City partner-ship is the Ultimate Parks Inc. facility in Manotick. A group of “forward-thinking” Ottawa-Car-leton Ultimate Association mem-bers incorporated a company in the late 1990s so they could sell shares and raise the money re-quired to purchase land and cre-ate the 19 fields that currently sit

on Manotick Station Rd., recounts OCUA executive director Christiane Marceau.

“They sold a lot to players and com-panies, and players outside of Ottawa bought shares too because ultimate is

such a big community,” Marceau notes.

OCUA didn’t exactly have unbearable problems accessing City fields at the time – although plenty of sports groups will attest that that’s a major challenge of theirs – they just wanted a place the ultimate community could call their own.

“It was more of a vision,” Marceau explains. “‘If we want to grow, and if one day ultimate be-comes so big, we won’t be able to find fields. And we want to be part of the solution and find a place where we can play instead of al-ways depending on the City.’”

Private partners push sports facility projects aheadSPECIAL FEATURE - OTTAWA SPORTS FACILITIES

Seen here under construction in early July, the Richcraft Recreation Complex in Kanata North is due to open late this year. In fall 2014, another major multi-purpose centre will open in Barrhaven South.

The Richcraft Recre-ation Complex, set open late this year on Innov-ation Dr. near the Mor-gan’s Grant community in Kanata North, will include an 8-lane, 25-metre pool, two full-size “high school” gymnasiums, a cardio and weight room, a group fitness studio, an outdoor lit ar-tificial field, basketball courts, play areas, a skateboard plaza and connecting paths to surrounding trails in Trillium Woods.

“When I came back on council in 2006, I had a couple things I wanted to see happen, and the recre-ation centre was one of them,” signals Kanata Coun-cillor Marianne Wilkinson. “There have been no re-creation facilities built in Kanata North since the early 1970s, despite a significant population increase. It was overdue to have this.”

RICHCRAFT RECREATION COMPLEX

photo: dan plouffe

By Dan Plouffe

13

The lack of a partnership has tripped them up recently, however. As the city has grown outwards consider-ably since the late ‘90s, the land that was cheap 15 years ago has now be-come much more valuable, which the ultimate group discovered in its tax bill when the property was re-evalu-ated two years ago.

“If the value of the land keeps on rising and rising, and the taxes too, some day we might be forced to sell this because we’re not able to afford it,” highlights Marceau, who’s suggesting a tax break would be ap-propriate. “We kind of hope the City will recognize how important having those 19 fields is and help us for that.”

Although it wouldn’t apply to an existing facility like Ultimate Parks Inc., the City does have a Community Partnership Major Capital Program, which can assist groups to develop fa-cilities with cash grants to cover parts of construction costs, land or other services in kind, or waiving applic-able municipal fees.

Several local sports groups have applied to the program or are eyeing it with keen interest.

OTTAWA VELODROME PROJECT

One such collective is the Ott-awa Velodrome Project, a group that wants to bring an indoor track cycling facility to town.

“It’s embryonic still,” signals Kris Westwood, an original leader of the group that now involves nearly every cycling club in the region. “Right now, we’re still trying to determine feasibility.”

In the fall, they’ll receive feed-back from the City on their plans, and their request for land and a break on services and property taxes. Funding for the $6M project that could also in-clude an indoor soccer facility would likely come from a private developer partner while the velodrome “basic-

ally pays a mortgage” back to them over the years, Westwood explains.

Enthusiasm is high for the idea, adds Westwood, Cycling Canada’s high-performance director who’s en-thusiastic about the possibility for elite athlete development, although recreational riders would certainly make up the bulk of velodrome mem-bership.

The success of the seven-year-old Forest City velodrome in London, Ont. – whose single biggest user club happens to be the travel-happy Ot-tawa Bicycle Club – offers hope for Ottawa, he continues.

“A lot of people do spinning classes,” Westwood reasons. “I really think there’s a big chunk of those people who would prefer to actually be moving rather than sitting on a sta-tionary bike throughout winter.”

MORE DOMES, MORE GOLF?

Having opened its fifth local air-supported dome last year on Richardson Side Rd. not far from Ca-nadian Tire Centre, TMSI is eager to continue adding more since its west-end domes have a 98% utilization rate over a 30-week period, McCorriston indicates.

“We are cautiously optimistic that we can provide two more full-size, air-supported structures in the west end, and we’d like to have one up by fall 2014,” he says.

TMSI is currently scouting out potential locations. A winter-only in-flatable dome next to the present per-manent facility at Ben Franklin is a possibility, McCorriston says.

His company is also interested in purchasing another golf course, and is keen to bid on Pine View Golf Course, the 36-hole municipal facility that the City plans to sell, and which also hap-

pens to back onto TMSI’s Gloucester SuperDome, home to an indoor driv-ing range during winter days.

“We like the synergies of having a year-round golf facility,” McCor-riston says. “We think it’s a perfect fit for our company, especially with our other golf facilities in the south (eQuinelle in Kemptville) and in the west (Thunderbird in Carp). It be-comes a triangle – almost a ClubLink effect.”

TENNIS RENO IN OLD OTTAWA S.

In late August, The Ottawa Ten-nis and Lawn Bowling Club unveiled plans to restore its 1920s-era club-house, which will take around 10 years and $1M to preserve its histor-ical interior and balconies, and update the lobby, cafe and lounge, as well as plumbing, wiring and structural sup-ports.

“The Club (founded in 1881) is a hub of activity with its tennis, swim-ming, volleyball, café and banquet facilities and range of social activit-ies,” OTLBC board president Peter Sutcliffe says in a media release. “Our vision is to bring back the historical beauty of the building with some modern twists that will improve the experience for our members.”

FIELD OF FIELD HOCKEY DREAMS

The future looked decidedly grim not so long ago for local field hockey aficionados, but the possibility of a new facility tailored to their sports has raised hopes.

The Nepean Sportsplex’s astro turf is the only current surface in the city that meets the proper field hockey standards. Had the City not cancelled plans to replace it with modern field turf, it would have meant disaster for the growing sport.

“We’re so low on the City priority

list. We’ve had a heck of a time. We’ve had to build our program strictly on dropped time when other sports aren’t using it,” describes Sandeep Chopra, the founder of the fast-growing Nepean Nighthawks club. “We know the writing’s on the wall. Eventually they will change that turf.”

But the good news is that Chopra has found a private donor who’s prom-ised to fund construction of a field hockey facility worth around $1.5M – the term “angel donor” would apply in a big way in Chopra’s eyes.

The City’s Capital program is a likely next step.

“It’s a tough go, even if you have the money. Long-term, you have maintenance and taxes,” he under-lines. “We are self-starters. We’re not asking for anything for free. We want it to be a viable, self-sustaining facil-ity.

“We know we have to come and put something on the table – money, expertise – and that we’ve done.”

SKATING OVAL REMAINS A WISH

Not every sport has angels ap-pearing, however. For many smaller sports, the prospect of having their own facility remains largely a dream.

Long-track speed skating is one apt example of this. Each year, a group of dedicated volunteers works tirelessly to flood and maintain a natural outdoor oval at Brewer Park, but each year there are consistently less days where the track is useable, and competitive athletes are forced to make the trek to the refrigerated oval in Lake Placid whenever they can.

“That would be a dream come true for sure to have a refrigerated oval in Ottawa. That’s where you get the de-velopment,” says four-time Olympic medalist Kristina Groves, who grew up skating at Brewer before join-ing the national team at the Calgary Olympic Oval. “If that oval wasn’t there, there’s no way I would have... I mean, I was horrible at short track. That oval kept the glimmer of hope in my eye alive. I was always like, ‘OK, I’ve got six weeks to do long track,’ and it was my little stepping-stone to get to Calgary. If I was only doing short track, I don’t know if I would

have stuck with it.”

HIGH-PERFORMANCE LOW ON LIST

A lack of attention to athlete devel-opment needs is a criticism voiced at the City by several local sports groups. Even the brand new multi-purpose centres may meet the City’s needs to run its own recreational programs, but they don’t suit the community clubs and competitive sports groups who are some of the main users, they say.

“There’s a huge lack of space,” says Ottawa National Diving Club coach Kathleen Murphy, whose club grew quickly from a couple dozen to over 100 members recently. “I need more space. I need more time. I would like another evening so I can run a bigger program.”

Since the pools at the new facil-ities won’t be deep enough, Murphy expects she could be begging for prime pool time at the nearly 40-year-old Nepean Sportsplex for awhile yet.

“I know it costs a dollar for every square foot and all that,” Murphy adds. “But really, you’re spending millions of dollars and not really ser-vicing anybody.”

The trouble with just about every athletic facility is that demand is al-ways highest in the evening, after work and after school.

“If they could invest in a sports school, that would be very helpful,” Murphy suggests. “These facilities are open during the day, and we could take advantage of them.”

Facility availability is an excel-lent bonus that a school catering to elite athletes would offer, echoes Colin Walker, who’s put the pieces in place to start SportsCan Academy, a private school he hopes to open in fall 2014 should enough students sign up.

Training would take place from 8-10 a.m., which would also provide facilities with revenue at hours they have trouble filling, Walker de-tails. But Canada still seems to be hampered by a prevailing philo-sophy that pursuing excellence takes away from providing opportunities for everyone, says the public school teacher of 20 years, which is why support for sports schools, or plans for top-notch athletic facilities, don’t receive widespread support.

“That’s the mindset that we have to get past,” Walker emphasizes. “You can have both. One doesn’t have to suffer for the other. If you provide good facilities for the elite, that opens up facilities for everyone else to use.”

SPECIAL FEATURE - OTTAWA SPORTS FACILITIESMembers of the Ottawa-Carleton Ultimate Association created Ultimate Parks Inc. in the late 1990s, incorporating a company and selling shares to build a facility that now boasts 19 fields in Manotick.

photo provided

It was back to the regular grind at Woodroffe High School for Maddie Schmidt after Labour Day, but her summer was anything but ordinary as she collected piles of medals in national and international canoe-kayak competitions.

“It was an amazing season,” says the 18-year-old. “But it’s kind of nice to get home and kind of get away from it.”

Schmidt paddled for Canada at World Cups other European events earlier this sea-son, where the medal winning began. Most re-cently, she plucked five medals at the Canada Games in Sherbrooke, and then surpassed that haul at the Aug. 27-31 Canadian championships in Montreal, collecting five gold, a silver and bronze, including victories in each of her three individual under-19 races.

But there’s no doubt the medal that means the most to her was the bronze from the Aug. 1-4 world junior championships in Welland, Ont. Schmidt captured Canada’s first medal of the competition on home soil, although it took what seemed like ages to find out that she did cross the finish line in third place in the wo-men’s K-1 200 metres.

“I was looking around for evidence to show me that I came third and the way I found out was the roar of the crowd,” the Rideau Canoe Club athlete recalls. “They started screaming, and I just knew they’d seen the results on the scoreboard. That was pretty exciting. I think I screamed a little bit. I got super happy, and then the tears started coming. It was overwhelming.”

Schmid t had beaten a paddler from Kazakhstan to the finish line by less than three hundredths of a second.

“I put so much into it,” she reflected. “I’d think about the spe-cific practices that happened – like in the winter, running, or even on the water in summer. Those workouts added up and made a difference.”

Rideau coach Mike Robinson was first to hug Schmidt after the official results appeared.

“We built a really good relationship this summer and in this preparation,” highlights the paddler who took up the sport at her aunt’s Ott-awa River Canoe Club. “I went into the crowd, and I went to see my mom and my family and they were all bawling. It was super cute.”

Junior worlds was easily the personal high-light of her season, but seeing her fellow Ottawa athletes excel at Canada Games and then nation-als – where Rideau finished second in the over-all club standings and won a club record number of golf medals – also stood out.

“It was incredible. It was super cool to be fighting for top spot,” Schmidt says, identi-fying a quality facility and some of Canada’s best coaches guiding a big base of athletes as Rideau’s keys to success.

“It just shows what we’re doing at the Rideau Canoe Club is working,” she adds.

Besides the top nationals results, Rideau was also the overall champs at the U13 and U15 Trillium provincials, while more experienced athletes at the club are amongst the world’s best dragonboaters – 11 members of the Ottawa Galley Girls helped Canada to 11 gold and one bronze out of 12 races at the Dragonboat World Championships in Hungary earlier this summer.

Rideau’s Steven Jorens, a Carleton Uni-versity mechanical engineering student from Aurora, also competed for Canada against the planet’s best sprint kayakers, placing 14th over-all in the K-4 men’s 1,000 m at the Aug. 28-Sept. 1 world championships in Germany.

“We’re such a tight team. All our training groups are super close and we all train really hard together,” Schmidt underlines. “Even though kayaking is a fairly individual sport, it really is like a team environment at the Rideau Canoe Club.”

COMMUNITY CLUBSJr. worlds bronze tops paddler’s medal haul

By Dan Plouffe

Gymnastics building blocks for Tumblers TotsIt starts with a calm, quiet gym. But it’s not long

before the bright, welcoming atmosphere is taken over by excited yelps and laughter from young children getting their first taste of gymnastics exercise.

They’re moving quickly through colourful, kinder-sized equipment stations, bouncing on trampolines, crawling through tunnels, walking on balance beams and conquering blocks by climbing up and over them. And the foam pit is always a favourite.

It finishes with a high-five and a stamp that matches each week’s fun theme.

It’s all part of Tumblers Gymnastics Centre’s daytime program, offered for tots as young as 12 months, up to 5 and 6 years old.

“Kids have a lot of energy at that age, and they need to burn it somewhere,” highlights Amanda Green, the daytime program coordinator. “The classes are action-packed from beginning to end. They don’t sit very often, except to explain a cir-cuit for a minute or so. Then they’re going, going, going the whole time.

“They’re definitely getting their energy out, and they’re learning a lot too.”

For the youngest participants, parents assist their children in making movements and helping them to discover their bodies. They’ll later pro-gress onto traditional gymnastics apparatuses such as bars, balance beam, trampoline and floor, which are all modified for smaller bodies.

BUILDING A FOUNDATION THROUGH FUNThe abilities acquired from gymnastics – an

activity that Sport Canada says all children should take part in – provide an excellent introduction to physical literacy for young athletes.

“It provides a good base with those gross motor skills – those large muscle movements,” Green notes. “It’s all used in other sports, so it’s

a great foundation. Starting them young is defin-itely good, so that they develop those skills at a younger age.”

The programs also provide an opportunity for children to socialize with others and to experi-ence a bit of a structured setting, while learning lessons like taking turns and being patient.

“We’re trying to teach them life skills as well,” Green explains. “They definitely enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun. During the day, I’m out in the lobby talking to parents, and they’re very appreciative of the classes, and the energy that the coaches bring to the classes. The kids really feed off the coaches’ energy.”

A lot of the Tumblers staff are current or former gymnasts, while others are simply great with chil-dren. Green first became a Tumblers gymnast at age 3 – before the club moved to its current 17,000 sq. ft. facility on Vantage Drive in Orleans – and started coaching when she was in high school. She’s revelled in watching many young parti-cipants develop at Tumblers Gymnastics Centre over the years.

“Seeing them from the very start and how they progress is really tremendous,” Green smiles. “A lot of them stay here for a number of years. I enjoy watching them go through the program, and grow through the program.”

See www.tumblers.ca for more information.

“My triathlon coach told me indirectly that it was my best sport and then my Dad suggested that I join a cycling club.”

That was three years ago. Since then, Byway has climbed to the top of his age division nationally in just his first year of serious competi-tion. Now that he’s enjoyed a breakthrough season, By-

way is eyeing next year’s Pan Am junior championships as well as the next junior world championships.

OBC’s Derek Gee and Keltie Campbell were also medalists in the cadet class, while Ariane Bonhomme medaled in junior. Cataford and Cumberland native Vin-cent De Haitre, now based in Calgary for school and speed skating training, reached the podium in elite men’s events.

Cataford and fellow Garneau-Quebecor athlete Mike Woods of Ottawa are competing in the Sept. 3-8 Tour of Alberta, a first-year event featuring an impressive international field, and will then race for Canada at events in Montreal and Quebec City.

Ottawa’s Evan McNeely, 21, placed 41st in his world under-23 mountain bike world championships debut Aug. 30 in South Africa.

continued from p.11

BYWAY: Ottawa cyclists hit national & int’l peaks

A Petit visit

12-time Paralympic gold medalist Chantal Petitclerc was in town Aug. 24 as keynote speaker for the Shoppers Drug Mart Run for Women Series, which supports women’s men-tal health programs. The 43-year-old retired wheelchair racer is expecting her first child and will act as Canada’s Chef de Mission at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

photo: dean joncas

Maddie Schmidt

photo: digital sports photography

14

The Ottawa Skyhawks National Basketball League of Canada team unveiled their first pair of local signees in August – Rideau High School grad Manock Lual and St. Matthew Catholic High School grad Eric Kibi. The team kicks off its inaugural season Nov. 2 at Canadian Tire Centre.

15

Myers Riders junior varsity coach Matt Kassner has for years seen first-hand the quality of football player and coach Ottawa can produce.

“I think football is really a growing sport in Ottawa and I can tell by the num-bers I’ve seen rise over the years at our tryouts,” says Kassner, who grew up play-ing for the Riders, spent two years playing for the Gee-Gees and is now their offens-ive assistant. “It’s where all the quality is and it’s definitely improving each and every year.”

DEDICATION SPURS RIDERS TRIUMPH

The Riders’ OVFL campaign was the club’s best yet, as its three squads all reached their league championship games on Aug. 17, with the varsity and bantam squads both topping Niagara, and Kassner’s JV team falling to Cambridge.

“It was really overwhelming,” high-lights varsity coach Max Palladino, who is salivating at the young west-end talent that will move up in future seasons to play for his OVFL squad or his Jr. Riders, also championship contenders this year. “It’s phenomenal. Those young kids are what we look to build on.”

In his many years watching local football, Ruckstuhl observes that the big reason the sport continues to rise in Ott-awa is due to the passion and dedication of individuals who stay involved in grow-ing the game after their playing days are complete.

“It takes a lot of effort and a lot of hard work by a lot of volunteers,” the 69-year-old emphasizes. “There’s nothing better for me than to see a kid grow up playing here, go to university, and then come back and say, ‘Gee, I’d like to coach.’

“Ottawa has really flourished here.”—with files from Dan Plouffe

FOOTBALL continued from Cover

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Register for the 15 Week Winter Program Before September 8 and Get Into the Fall Program for Free! Coaches Include Former

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The Beautiful Game Starts Here

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Henry McKay’s broken right foot healed up just enough in time for August’s Speedo Junior Development Nationals in Saskatoon, as the 13-year-old Nepean Ottawa Diving Club athlete won his age group by almost 10 points with a 306.50 score to earn a place on the Canadian team for the Sept. 26-29 Pan American junior diving championships in Arizona. Making their debuts on the national stage, Timothy Lewis and Emma Christie of the Ottawa National

Diving Club placed 13th and 20th respectively in their divisions.

SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTS

LOCAL DIVER SPRINGS BACK FROM FOOT INJURY TO CAPTURE CANADIAN TITLE

FENCER HELPS CANADA TO ‘BREAKTHROUGH’ WORLDS SHOWING

TEAM CANADA VET, ROOKIE SHARE GOLDEN SLEDGE WIN AT SOCHI TEST EVENTOn Sept. 1, the Canadian sledge hockey team won the colour of medal in Sochi, Russia they’d like to repeat come the 2014 Paralympic Games, capturing gold in the Four Na-tions Tournament. Ottawa’s Marc Dorion scored in Canada’s 5-0 victory over Norway in the tournament final. Dorion was an offensive force throughout, with three goals and three assists in Canada’s five victories, while Ottawa’s Ben Delaney scored in his first-ever game with the Canadian national team to open the tournament on Aug. 27.

CHARTRAND EARNS INTERNATIONAL PB IN JR GRAND PRIX SEASON DEBUTAlaine Chartrand opened her 2013-14 figure skating season with a fourth-place finish at the season’s first ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit stop Aug. 30 in Latvia, earning a personal-best international score of 146.95 points. “I gained quite a bit in the performance department of the program,” the 17-year-old Nepean Skating Club member said in a Skate Canada news release. “It’s a more mature routine this year so that’s an aspect I’ve put a lot of focus on for this season. I also feel a lot more confident after my success last year. I had the kind of start I wanted with a new program.” After winning bronze at last year’s senior nationals and placing 8th at world juniors, Chartrand is eyeing a spot on the Canadian Olympic team for Sochi, which she can earn through the 2014 Canadian championships in Ottawa in January.

OTTAWA TALENT ADDED TO SKYHAWKS TEAM ROSTER

Ottawa’s Kelleigh Ryan helped Canada’s women’s foil team to its best result of all-time at the fencing world championships on Aug. 10 in Hungary, placing seventh. “This result is a confirmation that we are heading in the right direction,” national team and Ottawa Fen-cing coach Paul ApSimon said in a Fencing Canada news release. “Our objective was seventh, and defeating the

Chinese in the last match was the perfect exclamation point to a breakthrough season.”

A total of 93 teams took to the field for the girls’ edition of the Gloucester International Soc-cer Tournament Aug. 10-11 at the Hornets Nest in Blackburn Hamlet. The host Gloucester Hornets earned the most division titles with four – in senior, U12 Tier 1, and U18T1 and UT2. Other local champions included Cumberland (U10 and U11T1), Ottawa South United (U14T1 and U13T1) and the Ottawa Internationals (U15T1). On the same weekend a bit further west, the Ottawa Royals hosted 120 boys’ teams for their Kickin’ in the Capital tour-

nament. Nepean City was victorious in the U12 category, the Internationals topped U16 and OSU won Mini U9.

HORNETS, ROYALS TOURNEYS BRING OVER 200 TEAMS TO OTTAWA IN 1 WEEKEND

Retirement proved to offer an even shorter reprieve from school than usual for former Colonel By Secondary School teacher Kerry MacLean. The Maverick Volleyball Club founder and president accepted a new chal-lenge and is set to coach the Royal Military College of Canada Paladins women’s volleyball team, the Kingston institution announced in August.

MAVS VOLLEYBALL GURU MACLEAN TAKES OVER RMC PROGRAM

LOCAL GOLFER WINS ONTARIO U17 CHAMPIONSHIP IN PLAYOFF

WRESTLER/WATER POLO PLAYERS ALL WIN BRONZE AT PAN AM YOUTH COMPETITIONSWrestler Augusta Eve and water polo players Victor Gomeluk and Euan Scoffield all shared a common experience as they won bronze medals at Pan American youth championships in their sports. Ottawa Titans player Scoffield scored in Canada’s 10-6 bronze medal match win over the host Argentians at the Aug. 23-Sept. 1 event. National Capital Wrestling Club athlete Eve lost a close first match to a Colombian opponent and then fell to a Venezuelan before downing a U.S. challenger to win the women’s 43 kg division bronze at her Aug. 8-11 event in Colombia.

15-year-old Orleans golfer Grace St-Germain won the Ontario under-17 girls’ golf cham-pionships event at Renfrew Golf Club, making birdie on the first playoff hole to claim the crown, which came on the heels of an Ontario junior girls’ match play title earlier this year.

Kristina Kiss made a name for herself during a distinguished soccer career with the Canadian women’s national team, and that name’s now got a permanent place on a sign in her homet-own. The Kristina Kiss Soccer Field and Park was officially opened on Aug. 31 at 100 Akerson Rd. near Eagleson Rd. and Cope Dr. in Kanata South. The 32-year-old appeared 75 times for Team Canada in her playing career. She is now head coach for the West Ottawa Soccer Club.

KRISTINA KISS SOCCER FIELD AND PARK CREATED IN KANATA

Ottawa Nepean Canadian Demi Orimoloye and Team Canada missed the medal round at the Aug. 30-Sept. 8 18U World Cup in Taiwan, finishing fourth in their pool with a 2-3 record. Despite getting a hit in his lone at-bat during the five games, Orimoloye appeared sparingly.

BASEBALL PLAYER WILL SHOOT FOR 7TH AT 18U WORLD CUP

28TH-PLACE FINISH FOR MODERN PENTATHLETE AT WORLDSOttawa modern pentathlete Melanie McCann placed 28th at the Aug. 19 world championships in Taiwan. The 22-year-old struggled uncharac-teristically in the opening fencing event, placing 23rd, and didn’t quite

get rolling until the final combined (running and shooting) competition, where she was 12th. McCann was 11th at the London 2012 Olympics. Rockland’s Mathea Stevens, who trains in Ottawa, did not advance past the preliminary group, finishing 31st in her group.

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