HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 2, #4 January 2013

CapiTal’S beST SkaTing SHOT

HOman HunTS fOr HOme fanS

iTCHing fOr immediaTe impaCT

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Memories of frozen hands, chilling temperatures and whipping winds typically aren’t fond childhood recollections.

But for Kristina Groves, they’re nostalgic moments from her teen-age years when she and her Ottawa Pacers friends would go to Brewer Park during their Christmas holidays and help the volunteer crew maintain the outdoor long-track rink.

“We would bring out the fire hoses and flood it for a couple hours in the morning,” Groves recounts. “Then we’d go back to one of the guys’ houses and play Pictionary for hours. And then we’d go back to the oval and flood it again.”

The experience helped build a special connection to the ice that eventually led her all over the globe, she notes, but most of all, it was just plain fun.

“We had a blast,” Groves smiles. “I mean, that kind of stuff is sort of like Canadian lore. It makes me so happy when I think that that’s what we did.”

Of course, that tall teen with few signs of natural athletic talent went on to become Ottawa’s most decor-ated Olympian of all time, and won the most medals of any Canadian at the world single-distance champion-ships with three gold, five silver and 10 bronze over the course of her 23-year speed skating career that began at Brewer Park.

Groves’ place in local sports his-tory will be further cemented when she comes to the 2012 Ottawa Sports Awards banquet on Jan. 30 at Algon-quin College to present the trophy that will now be called “The Kristina Groves Female Athlete of the Year Award.”

“It’s just a huge honour,” Groves says. “Ottawa’s obviously produced a lot of wonderful and successful ath-letes over the years, and to be among them makes me feel very proud that I accomplished what I did.”

It’s now been a little over a year since the 35-year-old retired from speed skating and thus ended the per-ennial hold she owned on the city’s top female athlete honour. Groves earned the award five consecutive

times from 2006 to 2010, and also won in 2004.

Groves’ career was a long, steady rise – her results as a youth and early in her career were unspectacular, but she kept driving forward and wound up with two silver medals from the 2006 Olympics in Torino. That made the sudden drop pretty harsh once she decided to hang up the blades.

“You’re so driven and so focused for so long, and then it’s over, and I sort of felt lost for awhile,” shares the Vancouver 2010 silver and bronze medalist. “It’s been challenging. I didn’t quit speed skating because I had something else I wanted to do, I quit because I didn’t want to skate any more. I didn’t have a plan or really any clue of what I wanted to do.”

Groves took a bit of time to relax,

skied a ton, and kept busy for a year public speaking, and using her voice as an athlete to advocate for Right To Play – an international organiz-ation seeking to spread sport to dis-advantaged parts of the world – and Clean Air Champions, whose mis-sion is to improve air quality and re-duce climate change with the help of high-performance athletes. In a way, this led to her recent decision to pur-sue a Master’s degree in sustainable energy development at the University of Calgary.

“We all have our passions, and for me, that’s one of them,” explains the Brookfield High School grad who recalls her interest in the environment dates back to her days at the River-side-area school.

“It’s really challenging when you

quit sport,” she highlights. “Espe-cially being in it so long at the level I was, you sort of get over your old life and you have to make a new one.”

Groves knows her connection with the sport that consumed her life will always be there. She informally mentors younger skaters in Calgary by going for coffee with them from time to time, she continues to pro-mote amateur sport through her in-triguing blog at kristinagroves.ca, and her main employment at the moment is doing speed skating commentary for CBC.

“I enjoy it, and it’s a challenge. Some days I come home from a day at the studio and I feel like I raced myself,” Groves describes.

Nepean Skating Club’s Alaine Chartrand wants the 2014 Canadian championships in Ottawa to be her final step to Sochi.

Team Homan will battle for a berth in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in nearby Kingston at the Jan. 21-27 provincials.

Three local teenage soccer players have moved to Montreal to join the youth academy with the Impact MLS club.

4-time Olympic speed skating medalist Kristina Groves to return home for 2012 Ottawa Sports Awards gala & have fe-male athlete of the year trophy named after her

GROVES continued on p.6

HomecomingBy Dan Plouffe

Kristina Groves reacts after completing her 1,500 m race at the 2006 Torino Games. The Ottawa native won her first of three career Olympic silver medals in the event.

THe dO-iT-fOr-darOn-SquaTCH

p. 2The man known as “Sens-quatch” donned his latest creation at a Nepean vs Ottawa PWHL match to support Do It For Daron.

photo: torsten silz/afp/getty images

for Hero

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All the best aspects of local women’s hockey were on full display Dec. 20 at the Bell Sensplex as a capacity crowd of over 500 gathered for the inaugural Do It for Daron match between the Ottawa Senators and Nepean Wildcats.

With many players and fans adorned in purple – the official colour of the teen mental health campaign in honour of former Senators girls’ hockey player Daron Richardson – numer-ous local PWHL alumni crowded the red carpet for the ceremonial opening faceoff.

Stephanie Richardson (the mother of Daron) and Ontario Women’s Hockey Association pres-ident Fran Rider dropped the puck in front of a group that included the likes of NCAA stars Amanda Leveille, Jamie Lee Rattray, Cydney Roesler and Daron’s older sister, Morgan.

“To be part of this event, it means a lot,” stated Senators player Stacy Galasso. “It gives you something to put forward (in the com-munity). We use that to play hard in every game.”

The contest featuring one of the best rival-ries in the PWHL set the stage for what should become an instant classic for years to come around the holiday season. Both clubs have now laid solid foundations for their women’s junior hockey programs, although with the large swing of players that moved from Ottawa over to Nepean before this season, the teams’ fortunes have also swung.

After struggling for their first two seasons in the league, the Wildcats are now sitting pretty at

10-5-6 this year, while the rookie-filled Senators lineup is 5-9-5.

After making her debut in the under-21 league last year as a 14-year-old, Wildcat for-ward Sam Cogan is now dominating at age 15 with 14 goals and 14 assists to sit sixth overall in PWHL scoring.

Cogan registered two assists on goals by Katryne Villeneuve and Josiane Pozzebon in the Dec. 20 match as the Wildcats skated away from a 1-1 tie half way through the third period

to post a 3-1 win over Ottawa. Meghan Brennan also scored for Nepean, while Samantha Morell had Ottawa’s goal.

“I think (playing Ottawa) does make the team want to win so much more,” Nepean cap-tain Cassidy Campeau noted. “And we came out with a win, which is great for the team.”

big red riCHardSOnMorgan Richardson is already making an

impact in her rookie NCAA season with the #3-ranked Cornell Big Red. Coached by Doug Derragh, an Arnprior native who played with Luke Richardson in junior hockey, the stay-at-home defender scored her first goal in a 4-0 win over Princeton back on Nov. 2.

Morgan calls the adaptation to life in New York state a success, thanks in large part to her parents being nearby in Binghamton, where Luke coaches the NHL Senators’ American Hockey League affiliate.

“I really enjoy having my parents close,” Morgan said by e-mail. “I get to see some of the B-Sens games and my parents get to see my games. And the best part is that I get home cooked meals and laundry.”

Hockey community rallies for DIFD PWHL contestBy Mark Staffieri

junior leagues

photo: dan plouffe

Fury U14s settle for silver on penalties

They got one step closer to glory, but for the Ottawa Fury under-14 boys’ soccer team, the last missing piece was agonizing.

Competing at the Dec. 7-11 USL Super-Y League Finals in Bradenton, Flor-ida, the Fury made it past the semi-finals thanks to a 7-6 victory on penalties against the Cleveland Internationals, but couldn’t turn the shootout trick twice, falling in the North American champion-ship match 5-4 to Ironbound SC on penalties.

“The boys gave me everything they possibly could and then some,” says Fury coach Jimmy Zito. “They put their heart and soul into every game. I couldn’t

ask for a better group.”The Fury went into the

tournament with a 10-1-2 re-cord from summertime play, when they finished first in the New England division. They opened with 4-0 and 1-0 shutout wins against the Westchester Flames and the Virginia Alliance to clinch a spot in the semis before losing 2-1 to Orlando City Youth in their final group match.

The first two games made it clear that the boys were there for the gold medal, Zito underlines.

“Everything came to-gether well, we could do no wrong,” he recounts. “It was meant to be for us, but be-cause of injuries it unfortu-nately wasn’t.”

In the second contest, the injury bug attacked key play-

ers Jack Wadden and Jack-son Pickard, among others. Another injury to centre back Yannick Sigouin would fur-ther hurt the Fury’s chances, but the team still played very well despite the loss in the fi-nal, Zito reflects.

“I think that our biggest issue was that the other team had more recovery time be-fore the championship game,” says Zito, who coached a girls’ team to the club’s first Super-Y League title several years ago but was stopped just short of the historic first boys’ title this year. “We had a centreback, [Sigouin], go down motionless in the semis and that delayed the game for 20 minutes. It was all just very unfortunate.”

Zito, whose team lost out in the semi-finals last season, expects to coach the same group of boys next year, when they’ll take a crack at now moving up from silver to gold.

The U13, U15 and U16 Fury boys also competed in Florida but did not advance through the group stage.

photos provided

By Josh Bell

file photo

Morgan Richardson

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Competing in the first two of 19 championship games at Scotiabank Place, the Nepean Wildcats left their mark by competing in both finals of the lone girls’ divisions at the 2013 Bell Capital Cup.

“It’s really nice to see local teams from Nepean get to the finals,” says Jay Greco, the coach of the Wildcats Atom ‘AA’ team. “It was a fantastic tournament. The kids loved every minute of it.”

Nepean allowed just one goal in four Peewee ‘AA’ round robin matches – during a 1-1 tie with the Toronto Leaside Wildcats – but rec-tified that record with a 2-0 victory in the rematch for the gold. Sarah Kosnaskie and Abygail Molough-ney scored in the final, while Maeve Dixon and Marina Martin were the goaltenders behind the near-perfect defensive record.

With several players battling ill-ness, the Atom Nepean team stuck with the Oakville Hornets for most of two periods but wound up run-ning out of gas and falling 8-2 in the final – their fifth game in three days.

Having teams in both finals was a feather in the cap for the Nepean Wildcats organization, which Greco has seen grow substantially since he first started coaching his eldest of

four daughters 14 years ago.“We’re very fortunate to have

such a great group of dedicated vo-lunteers,” he notes, pointing to the large number of competitive teams throughout the association, and the newfound success of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League club. “It’s been really organized well from the ground up.”

Greco looks at the Capital Cup as another good building block for his group on their road to the provin-cial championships, which will take place in Ottawa alongside the IIHF women’s hockey world champion-ships April 2-9.

“My gage on hockey is, ‘get as much ice time as you can,’” under-lines Greco, whose team made the finals of two previous tournaments as well, losing in Sudbury and win-ning in Kanata. “Win or lose, you’re always learning, and these are ded-icated, competitive girls who always work hard to get better.”

On the boys’ side, the Ottawa Valley Silver Seven and the Ottawa Sting won the biggest prizes out of local teams. The Silver Seven earned the Major Atom ‘AAA’ crown with a 2-1 victory over the Gloucester Rangers, while the Sting knocked off the Ottawa Senators 1-0 for Ma-jor Peewee ‘AAA’ gold.

The Ottawa West Golden

Knights beat the Sting 2-1 for the Major Peewee ‘A’ title, the Silver Seven topped the Kanata Blazers 4-3 to triumph in Minor Atom ‘AA’, and the West End Ice Hogs A2 downed the SouthEnd Capitals 2-0 in the Peewee House ‘A’ final.

In Minor Peewee ‘AAA’, the Sil-ver Seven lost a 6-5 double-overtime heartbreaker to the Rochester Mon-archs, while the Sting dropped a 2-1 Minor Peewee ‘A’ overtime final to the Grimsby Peach Kings, and the Stittsville Stormhawks C1 fell 4-1 to the North Franklin Shamrocks in the Atom House ‘C’ category.

In the Minor Peewee ‘AA’ di-vision, Jokerit Blue from Finland downed their host billet team, the Ottawa Valley Silver Seven, in the semi-final en route to a title win over the New Jersey Colonials.

Other local semi-finalists in competitive divisions included the Cumberland Jr. Grads (Major Peewee ‘AA’, Minor Atom ‘AA’), the Gloucester Rangers (Minor Peewee ‘AAA’, Minor Atom ‘AA’), the Kanata Blazers (Minor Peewee ‘AAA’, Major Atom ‘AAA’, Ma-jor Atom ‘AA’), the Ottawa West Golden Knights (Minor Peewee ‘A’, Major Atom ‘B’), the Nepean Raiders (Major Atom ‘AAA’) and the Eastern Ontario Wild (Major Peewee ‘AAA’).

community clubsNepean shines on Capital Cup stage

By Dan Plouffephoto: dan plouffe

It’s a big tag to carry for a 16-year-old – she’ll be the hometown’s best hope when Ottawa hosts the Canadian figure skat-ing championships and Olympic team selections in 2014 – but make no mis-take, Alaine Chartrand’s got Sochi on her mind no matter what her birth cer-tificate may say compared to her competitors.

“Most kids when you ask them, they want to go

to the Olympics,” acknow-ledges Chartrand, who started believing it was a true possibility when she earned a Junior Grand Prix assignment from Skate Canada last year. “I just need to improve my per-formance, and get all the jumps in my program, keep working hard, and I think I can get there.”

The Nepean Skating Club athlete doesn’t have a long list of national titles or medals in youth com-petition, but that’s because

she never stuck around in a category long enough to reach the top. Chartrand was in Grade 10 when she first competed at the senior level since she was already attempting triple-triple jump combinations.

Chartrand shot onto the elite scene with her senior-level third-place performance at last sea-son’s Skate Canada Chal-lenge. The ninth-place finisher at last year’s Ca-nadians was then chosen to compete at a Jr. Grand

Prix event in Croatia where she placed sixth.

“It was really, really cool to compete interna-tionally,” Chartrand de-scribes. “I always looked up to the kids who had their Team Canada jacket. I’d said, ‘I really want to have one of those.’ I was so excited to have mine come in the mail. It was the same jacket that Patrick Chan had. That was so cool.”

Nepean skating teen shoots for 2014 By Dan Plouffe

SKATING cont’d on p.6

Alaine Chartrand of the Nepean Skating Club will only be 17 when Ottawa hosts the 2014 Canadian Tire National Figure Skating Championships and Olympic qualifier Jan. 9-15 at Scotiabank Place, but she will still be one of Canada’s best in the senior women’s ranks.

photo: dan plouffe

Doc Hockey CornerThe most com-

mon New Year’s resolution is to purchase a gym membership and get into shape. The gym mem-bership will hope-

fully bring you better health, energy and life. Health allows us to enjoy the activities we love and support the family we love, so we must take care of our bodies mentally and physically.

The New Year is also a time to evaluate the first half of the hockey season. It’s time to note if you are where you wanted to be as a player and as a team?

Now is the time to figure out if you only need to tweak your strategy to keep improv-ing on your success or to totally revamp your approach to steer the ship in a new direction. Without this brainstorming, you may just be holding on to a dream that things will miracu-lously take a turn for the better; realistically if they have not changed yet, they probably are not going to change.

Playing half a year of rigorous practice and competitive games takes a toll on our overworked muscles, joints and ligaments, leaving us on the verge of an injury that is invisible to us.

At this point, it might be a good time to take a break and let your body heal. No I am not saying it’s a good idea to lie in bed all holiday season with a bag of chocolate Lindor truffles, candy covered peanuts, and gummy bears.

Nutritionally, one should feed the body what it needs to replenish and build its ca-pacity to do work. Foods to look for include salads (spinach and arugula) with lots of colours, fruits (clementines are abundant this time of year), and protein (chicken, chick peas, quinoa, etc.) to build and repair the muscles that need to recover.

With regards to working out, you might want to consider switching your cardio train-ing to cycling, rowing or swimming to give your body a break from the regular skating routine. Working different muscles like ham-strings, low back, and upper back will help create new strength and power.

Often flexibility is found to have an inverse effect on injury occurrence. Focus on your flexibility and mobility (using active muscle contractions with movements at the end of the range of stretch).

Scar tissue is one of the most common limiting factors that decreases flexibility and

strength, and is a precursor to injury. When a muscle is unable to contract from scar tis-sue, you become weaker and lose power.

Breaking down these areas of scar tis-sue and dysfunction will restore flexibility and fundamental movements (squat, lunge, touching toes etc.) That is why an Active Re-lease practitioner is an important preventat-ive strategy to help you perform at your best.

Furthermore, a deep tissue massage will help recovery of tissues by increasing circu-lation and fluid exchange of toxins and nutri-ents in and out of the cells. Yoga classes will help fluidity of fascia (a tissue that encases muscles) that limits flexibility too.

Raising youR gameNow, who do we look to for critiquing our

play to identify weaknesses and strengths over the past half year? Are we able to trust ourselves to make the necessary criticisms of our play?

This is why coaches and mentors are so important to give us that honest advice as to where we need to improve because sometimes it is tough to see our faults. It is the perfect time as the weather gets frigid enough for those outdoor rinks to freeze and give us a great opportunity to work on those individual skills that hold us back from being that complete player we strive to become.

Practice weaknesses such as acceler-ation (work on short sprints from a stand-still), shooting quickly with your head up, one-timers, backwards skating, cross-overs, awareness of players around you and vision of the ice, stickhandling, and protecting the puck – just to name a few.

And we can’t forget the fun tricky stuff like shooting and stickhandling between our legs, behind the back passes and flipping the puck up over sticks and players to heighten our creativity. It is this type of drive and delib-erate practice (focus on certain elements of your game) that one needs to obtain in order to separate those who are good from those who will become great.

As we reflect on half the year, remember that even your body needs a holiday during the holidays. So relax from the stresses of the game, work on individual skills, eat right, and treat yourself to some therapeutic Active Release Technique®.

Have a great second half of the year!

Holiday Healing and Deliberate Practice --By Dr. Shayne Baylis, Doc Hockey

doc hockey

@doc_hockey

Visit dochockey.ca or call 613-371-4774.

PReVenTion - PeRFoRmanCe - ReCoVeRy

The Nepean Wildcats Atom ‘AA’ team (above) won silver at the Bell Capital Cup, while the Peewee ‘AA’ group took gold.

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MARCH BREAK CAMP & SPRING SESSIONREGISTRATION OPEN!

C h r i s t m a s came a little early at the West Ottawa Soc-cer Club, and it was a present that club mem-bers will surely remember for

many years.Women’s national team players and

Olympic bronze medalists Christine Sinclair, Karina Leblanc, Diana Matheson and Rhian Wilkinson were in town for an evening social at the Brookstreet Hotel on Dec. 5. Proceeds from the event went to support them in their journey towards the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada.

The four stars also led training sessions, signed autographs and shared inspirational words with young players from WOS and other clubs alike over two days at the Thun-derbird Dome.

“My daughter is still on cloud nine,” one parent wrote in a recent thank-you message to the women’s national team. “Also a huge thanks to WOS for hosting a once in a life-time experience.”

The main message the Team Canada ladies wanted to share with the young athletes was to love what you do and work hard at it.

“I got cut from three teams when I was young,” Wilkinson told a group of enthusi-astic, wide-eyed youngsters. “The coach kept telling me that I wasn’t good enough, and you know what that made me do? I went home and I practiced harder because I love doing it and I didn’t want him to tell me what I couldn’t do, and the next year, I made the team.”

“And do you guys know what happened last summer?” she asked with a smile, whip-ping out her Olympic medal to cheers. “You guys see that? Does it look like chocolate?

“We were able to do this because we had big, big, big dreams and what we want you guys to do is dream big, big, big, big, big dreams. We want you to realize that one day this can be you, standing up here like the four of us, and you can have this dream one day.

“And it doesn’t have to be soccer. You may want to be a doctor or a teacher or anything. But we want you guys to dream big dreams too.”

There were about as many smiles and laughs from the four visitors during the fun-filled sessions, which included Sinclair co-ordinating an attack with her group of kids to suddenly charge over and steal all the soccer balls from Matheson’s group.

“It’s really special for all of us to meet these kids and see how excited they are, and re-member when we were kids,” Wilkinson said after the session. “It’s such an honour for us.”

For Wilkinson and Matheson, the visit was a homecoming of sorts since they’d pre-viously lived in Ottawa while playing in the W-League earlier in their careers. They were enthused to see the passion and excitement for soccer alive and well in the city.

“It’s wonderful,” Wilkinson added. “I just use this club as an example – look at this organiz-ation and how hard they’ve worked to bring us here and be with all these kids. And to sell out the event last night, it was amazing.

“Watching all these kids work-ing with people like Kristina Kiss, an ex-national team player, and other coaches with great exper-ience here, I’m excited about the future of soc-cer here.”

West ottawa soccer scoopSocial & sessions with Team Canada ‘a once in a lifetime experience’Their age may be low but the

competition level will be high when Avery Rosales and Juliette Chapman compete at the National Stream Cup 2013 in Edmonton Jan. 24-27.

The nine-year-olds from Tum-blers Gymnastics Centre earned the trip thanks to their 1-2 finish in the pre-novice aspire category at a December qualification event in Burlington, Ont.

“I never thought I was going to be like on Team Ontario when I was nine years old,” smiles Rosales, who’d been impressed when another Tumblers teammate previously got to do it at age 11 for the Eastern Ca-nadian championships.

The National Stream Cup is a new competition that only began last year. With the younger athletes ineligible for the Canadian champi-onships, it gives the pre-novice as-pire-level athletes the chance to test themselves nationally.

The young Tumblers athletes spend 4-5 hours a day just about every day of the week training at the Orleans facility.

“It’s like another family for us here,” describes Chapman, a Grade 4 Alain-Fortin elementary school student. “I think I spend more time

at gymnastics than I do at school.”Thanks to their standout per-

formances in Burlington – Rosales won gold on beam and floor to place first all-around, while Chapman took bars gold and finished second over-all – the gymnast friends who met two years ago when they started in the competitive program will now get to share a trip to Edmonton.

“I’m pretty nervous because I’ve never been to a really, really big com-petition. But I’m really excited for it too,” Chapman remarks. “When

I found out I was going to go with Team Ontario, I was a bit scared to go, but when I knew Avery was coming, I was really happy because I’m not going by myself.”

It was the same type of reaction for Rosales.

“When I heard Juliette was coming to Edmonton, I was like,

‘Yaa!’” echoes the Grade 4 Forest Valley elementary student. “I was a bit scared to go by myself too, but now I’ve got my teammate.”

It was somewhat unexpected to see the pair excel at such a young age, Tumblers coach Alina Lafren-ière says, but not entirely since she’s already got to know them well dur-ing two years of coaching.

“The younger you get them, the easier it is to work with them,” high-lights Lafrenière, who is enthused to see the club’s new generation reach-

ing greater heights earlier than the older gymnasts did. “It’s a pleasure to work with them. They’re both very hard workers. They strive for perfection, which is what gymnastics is all about. I’m very proud of them. It’s a big achievement represent ing Ontario.”

community clubs9-yr-olds headed to national event

By Dan Plouffe

photo: actionpix.caAvery Rosales

5

From enemies to best friends and now to roommates. That’s the journey of former Louis-Riel Rebelles Abdou Samaké and Yann-Alexandre Fillion, who are now living together in Montreal as members of the Im-pact MLS club’s youth academy.

Their first encounter came as rival forces with the Gloucester Hornets and Cap-ital United clubs.

“The first time I saw him, he scored three goals on me. I didn’t really like him,” smiles Fillion, one of four Impact academy goalkeepers in his age group. “But when we came to school together, we became really good friends.”

The pair forged a strong bond, often working together outside of regular training time.

“I was really happy when I found out (I’d been selected to the academy). I called Abdou and I was almost in tears,” recounts Fillion, who also played for Gloucester and Hull clubs along with Capital United. “We’re always together. To be able to share

the experience with someone I truly care about is great. We’re going to live there together, which is even better.”

A third local player will also join them in Montreal – former Woo-droffe Tiger Nevello Yoseke. The Louis-Riel boys have got-ten to know Yoseke well too from their ses-sions together with Parmar Sports Training. It was at a showcase event put on by Louis-Riel and Parmar where the trio were first eyed by the Impact, which led to later trials.

“Those are two of my really good friends,” highlights Samaké, who lived in Montreal for four years when he first came to Canada from Mali at age five. “When I learned that they made it too, I was almost happier than when I got the news. I was so happy for my friends.”

Samaké evolved from a striker to a de-fensive midfielder since he joined Ottawa South United, which has now set the stage for a further transition to centre back, which is where the Impact see his greatest potential. The Grade 10 student calls it a “dream” to be a part of the Impact academy, but knows that tough work lies ahead before he can attain his goal of becoming a professional player.

“Everyone who’s there already is used to feeling that pressure every day,” Samaké notes. “We’re not accustomed to that, but having others who are living the same thing will be good – to have someone there to share the experience with, and to have someone to talk to and help relieve some stress.”

Samaké and Fillion may be able to rely on Yoseke for a few tips about what to ex-pect. The Sudan-born refugee spent four months in a Brazilian team’s youth academy last season.

“We trained every day from Monday to Saturday, and Sunday was the only day we got off,” recalls Yoseke, who previously dressed for the Ottawa Fury locally. “The kids there are crazy good. They’re all about soccer, 24/7.”

This crew will be joining a growing group of Ottawa players in the Montreal system. Former Rebelle and Hornet Zach Sukunda is already there, and so is Fury grad Emad Houache, while Grade 7 Louis-Riel student Tarik Jouali of OSU is amongst those who have been invited to the next round of selections.

“They told me Ottawa players are feed-ing the system a lot. There’s good talent, but on top of that, the kids are willing to move to Montreal,” signals Joé Fournier, who coached Louis-Riel to a senior boys’ soccer city title this past fall. “We’re losing two of our best players for OFSAA, but that’s the whole theory behind the program. This is how we measure our success.”

high schools3 Ottawa players join Impact academy

By Dan Plouffe

photos: dan plouffe

SHOWCASE OF

CHAMPIONSWhere Canada’s Elite Teams Come to Prove Themselves

www.COLL EGES OC C ERS H OW C A S E .ca

SHOWCASE OF CHAMPIONSOttawa, Ontario, Canada

August 2-5 ,2013th

Tournament Features:1 Game Per Day Format Plus FinalsUniversity Coaches from The United States & CanadaCollege Seminar Presentation and Combine

JUNIOR - U13, U14 - 80 Minute Games

SENIOR - U15, U16, U17 - 90 Minute Games

Force academy ZoneChampion 1997 boys lead OSU’s Disney magic

The Ottawa South United Force tested themselves against some of the best com-petition in North America over the holiday break, and the result was remarkable all around.

The trip to Florida was par-ticularly special for the 1997 boys, who came away with a Disney Soccer Showcase tour-nament championship in the pre-academy division.

“We always knew they were a strong group of boys, and I think finally everybody put it together,” says OSU general manager Jim Lianos. “They grew up as a team, and as individuals, at that tournament. They showed what they’re made of.”

In the group stage, the Force played a scoreless match against their U.S. affiliate club, the Dallas Texans, beat a USSF academy team from Kendall, FL 1-0 and then topped an MLS DC United academy side 1-0, with Vana Markarian scoring the lone marker in both contests.

OSU wound up facing the Ontario Cup and national cham-pions from Dixie in the final, coming out with a 2-0 victory on goals by Yousef Aldaqqaq.

The perfect defensive record throughout the event was partly the product of the team’s two standout centre backs, Sanchit Gupta and Charles Andrascik.

“I’ve told the college coaches down there, ‘If you guys are looking for defenders on schol-arships, take these two as a group and you’ll never have to worry about your defence until they graduate,” Lianos highlights, calling the pair the two best defenders in Ontario. “They’re that good.”

Minus a small handful, the group of players that went 12-2-4 in the Ontario Youth Soccer League last summer have all been together at OSU since age 8 or 9. The team’s coach is Rus-sell Shaw, who was only home a few days after the event before heading back south for his wed-ding in Jamaica.

Add that to a long list of reas-ons for the club to celebrate. Also at Disney, the ’95 boys were undefeated in group play with a win and two ties, which moved them into the bronze medal match where they came back from a 3-1 deficit with 15 minutes left to win 4-3.

“That’s a very good group of boys that showed a lot of char-acter and determination to win the bronze,” Lianos notes.

The ’96 boys were also com-petitive in one-goal losses in the U15/16 academy division, and the ’98 girls went 1-2. Simply being invited to take part in the #1-ranked showcase tourna-ment in North America puts the participants in elite company.

“The fact that out of five Ca-nadian teams in that boys’ tour-nament, three were OSU’s tells you something about how good our kids, and our teams, are,” Lianos signals, noting that there can be between 20-30 college coaches watching any match.

“When we first went there in 2007 with the ’91 boys, we were just hoping to be able to com-pete and wanted the boys to get looked at,” he adds. “ N o w we’re not only com-p e t i n g , we’re ac-tually win-ning at the top level in the USSF academy division.”

Younger Force groups also made a name for themselves earlier at the Disney Junior Soccer Show-case. The Force 2000 boys won their division and the 2000 girls earned bronze.

“Even I am surprised about how quickly tangible and con-sistent success has come,” says OSU president Bill Michalopu-los, whose club turns 10 years old this year. “It just goes to show you what an organized program and passionate OSU players and coaches can do.

“The best thing is that OSU is providing opportunities and we are very pleased to see our players and teams taking ad-vantage of them.”

Nevello Yoseke

Abdou Samaké

Yann- Alexandre Fillion

The Thousand Islands Second-ary School student made her first trip outside of North America for the event and was impressed flying in “a big plane with rows of seats on the side and also in the middle.”

She’s more used to being a pas-senger in her family’s 2000 Ford F-250 pickup truck, which now has over 500,000 km on it. Chartrand lives in Maitland, skating three times a week closer to home in Prescott, 2-3 times at the Nepean Sportsplex and in Barrie on most Sundays, and during the summer.

After attending the past two nationals in Victoria and Monc-

ton, she’s pleased this year’s event is only in Mississauga, but is even more thrilled that it’ll be such a short trip down the 416 in 2014.

“It’s the closest to home it’ll probably ever be for me,” Chartrand says. “I skate all around Ottawa, so

I know a lot of people who will be able to come watch. I’m really excited about that.”

Chartrand’s score dipped a little compared to the Challenge qualifier last year at her first senior nationals, which featured a crowd of 5,000 instead of the 50 she’s more ac-customed to.

“There were TV cam-eras around, it was live, and I was in the final group, which meant that I got to be on TV for the short program,” recounts Chartrand, who heads into this year’s Jan. 13-20 nationals bolstered by her 148.73 total score from the 2013 Challenge – nearly 20 points better than last season.

“I think I’ll be a little more comfortable this year,” adds Chartrand, a top under-18 contender

to represent Canada at the junior worlds in Italy. “I’ll have to do really, really well at this Canadians to be setup for next Canadians and then hopefully 2014 Sochi. (The Olympics) are just next year.”

primed fOr CanadianS

Chartrand isn’t alone amongst local skaters looking forward to na-tionals. Gloucester clubmates Kel-sey MacLean and Nikki Mattocks will experience the first Canadian championships of their careers (minus Mattocks’ appearance as a juvenile). Mattocks placed 13th, while MacLean was seventh – one spot ahead of Minto’s Anna Mc-Corriston – at the Dec. 5-9 Chal-lenge in Regina to qualify for their first nationals in their high school senior years. MacLean had been in a similar position to qualify after the short program last year at Challenge, but a poor long program meant she didn’t make the cut.

“I learned from my mistakes. I know better how to deal with stuff like that,” says MacLean, who feels she matured a lot with added help from a sport psychologist this year. “It gave me more confidence. I learned how strong the mind can be.”

Also cracking the top-10 at Chal-lenge were Minto athletes Alexis Dion (fifth, pre-novice women), Cameron Hines (eighth, pre-novice men), and Zoe Gong, who moved up from 29th after the short program to sixth overall with the second-best novice women’s long program score. In the top-20 were Christian Reekie, Hugh Brabyn-Jones, Benjamin Guthrie and Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko, along with ice dancers Talia Rancourt/Alex Gunther, Vanessa Chartrand/Chris-tian Reekie and Samantha Glavine/Jeff Hough.

Alone, in her rez room for the very first time, Ottawa’s Jessica Gauldreault is filling up the empty space with dreams.

Beige cinderbook walls contrast with the sparkling enthusiasm and energy the water polo goalie brings to her next two tasks: a full course load in biomedical sciences and a spot on Canada’s Olympic team.

Gauldreault was just dropped off at In-diana University by her dad after a 16-hour drive. The start of her university career was delayed by a term because she was named to the Canadian youth team that competed at the world youth championships in Perth, Australia from Dec. 2-9.

“We started off really well,” says the 18-year-old goalie. “We’d won the pre-tournament competition in New Zea-land and went in with a lot of confidence.”

The squad wound up placing fifth overall with a win over Australia, a tie with Brazil and a loss to Russia. Gauldr-eault says the Canadians were happy to

beat the host team but disappointed in themselves for the 9-9 tie with Brazil, and for giving up an early lead to Russia be-fore having their comeback fall just short.

“We could have played much better,” notes the long-time Ottawa Titans player who joined the new Capital Wave club this fall along with her coach, Celso Rojas.

building TOwardS THe TOp

Gauldreault’s water polo career began around the same time she discovered her dislike of swimming lessons.

“I used to swim, in Grade 4, and I hated it, but I loved being in the water,” explains the St. Joseph Catholic High School grad. “Then my Aunt Amandeep took me to a water polo game; her friend was playing. And that was all it took: my parents signed me up for summer water polo camp.”

Gaudreault was selected for Team Canada after a strong performance at a competition in Montreal this past August – the first step on a path she hopes will lead to the same place as another former Ottawa goalie, Rachel Riddell, a Fisher

Park Middle School grad who also went to school south of the border and has now been a senior national team player for over a decade.

Gauldreault begins her career with the Indiana Hoosiers looking to eventually take the place of long-time starter Cassie Wyckoff.

“Jessica is a talented goalkeeper that will definitely give us depth,” Hoosiers coach Barry King said in a statement welcoming Gaudreault as a recruit. “She brings a lot of international experience having played with the Canadian ’93 and ’94 squads already. We’re looking forward to her being involved in the competition to replace Cassie.”

6 EDitoRiAl

902 Pinecrest Rd. Ottawa, Ont.

K2B 6B3

SPORTSOTTAWA.COM DECEMBER STARS OF THE WEEKName: Abdou SamakéSport: SoccerClub: Ottawa South UnitedSchool: ESP Louis-RielGrade: 10About: A key player for the city-cham-pion Louis-Riel Rebelles senior boys’ soccer team and a steady defensive mid-field force for OSU in the Ontario Youth Soccer League, Abdou Samaké has now become a member of the Montreal Im-pact youth academy.

Name: Alaine ChartrandSport: Figure SkatingClub: Nepean Skating ClubSchool: Thousand Islands SSGrade: 11About: A ninth-place finisher in the senior category at last year’s Canadian figure skating championships at age 16, Alaine Chartrand recently placed fourth at the Skate Canada Challenge with a 148.73 score that eclipsed her total from last year’s event by nearly 20 points.

Name: Kocha DelicSport: HockeyClub: Ottawa West Golden KnightsSchool: Agincourt ESGrade: 3About: The Bell Capital Cup Minor Atom ‘A’ all-star game’s top forward, Kocha Delic is in his first year of competitive hockey with the Ottawa West Golden Knights. Despite still being Novice age, Delic is the league’s scoring leader by 17 points and his team is in first place.

The Ottawa Sportspage is printed the first Tuesday of every month by Ottawa Sports Media, the locally-owned and operated publisher of the Ottawa Sportspage and SportsOttawa.com.

Editor: Dan Plouffe613-261-5838

Editor@SportsOttawa.com

Goalie climbing Canada’s water polo ranksBy Anne Duggan

photo providedJessica Gauldreault

“It’s pretty stressful. It’s really fun if it’s live because you’re so caught up in the moment, and you’re perform-ing in a way. I really enjoy it quite a bit.

“And I’m next to Steve Armitage, he’s like a legend.”Groves will be headed to Toronto to call races on tape

from CBC headquarters after the Sports Awards banquet, but first comes her stop in Ottawa to be feted along with the local sports community.

“I really am looking forward to it,” says Groves, not-ing the event provides a chance to come back and thank all the people at home for their support. “All those years that I won that award, I could never be there. To have the opportunity to finally be there, and especially because they’re naming it after me, it’s really an honour.”

blOndin in line fOr TOp aTHleTe prize?

It’s quite possible that Groves may be giving the trophy named after her to another long-track speed skater. Twenty-two-year-old Ivanie Blondin had a break-out fall on the World Cup circuit, collecting her first ca-reer medals – silver in a mass start race, and gold and bronze in the team pursuit alongside Christine Nesbitt and Brittany Schussler.

Other strong candidates for the award are: Courtnay Pilypaitis, who was named team MVP for Canada at the

last-chance Olympic qual-ifier and helped her team to a fifth-place showing in London; CIS women’s soc-cer MVP and W-League champion Gillian Baggott of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and Ottawa Fury; Emily Kemp, who won Canada’s first-ever medal at a world orienteering championships – a junior women’s bronze; and modern pentathlon World Cup finals sev-enth-place finisher Melanie McCann, who went on to finish 11th in London.

Male athlete of the year candidates include T11 ath-letics silver and bronze London 2012 Paralympic medal-ist Jason Dunkerley; Craig Savill, the lead for Glenn Howard’s 2012 world-champion curling rink; wheel-chair rugby Paralympic silver medalist Patrice Dagenais; and 4x100 m relay Olympic finalist Seyi Smith.

Also to be presented at the Ottawa Sports Awards are major honours for the year’s best male and female coaches, and male and female teams. Lifetime achieve-ment awards are also part of the mix, along with indi-vidual outstanding athletes in over 60 sports, and teams that won a provincial championship or higher.

See OttawaSportsAwards.ca and SportsOttawa.com for more coverage later this month.

GROVES: Emerging speed skater Blondin could win Groves trophycontinued from Front Cover

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SKATING: Chartrand spends close to 15 hours per week on the road for trainingcontinued from P. 3

Samantha Glavine & Jeff Hough.

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7

Former Nakkertok Nordic athlete Perianne Jones is continuing a career-best cross-country ski season into 2013. Fresh off a per-sonal-best showing on the World Cup circuit – an 11th-place finish in the sprint event in Canmore, AB on Dec. 15 – and a 12th in Finland two weeks earlier, the 27-year-old Almonte native began the new year by placing 14th at the Alpen Cup race in Germany.

sPoRtsPAgE snAPshots

nakkerTOkker SkiS TO new HeigHTS

new kanaTa Turf

dOriOn winS wOrld Sledge CHallenge SilVer

paralympianS COlleCT queen’S awardOttawa Paralympic rower David Blair was one of 25 Olympians and Paralympi-ans to receive Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medals from Canadian sport minister Bal Gosal in Toronto on Dec. 21. Also amongst those honoured was Ottawa Lions wheelchair racer Josh Cassidy.

Ottawa’s Marc Dorion got Canada started on the right foot at December’s World Sledge Hockey Challenge by scoring a hat trick in the Canadians’ tournament opener against Japan. Dor-ion added three more assists in three more Canada victories before a 1-0 defeat to USA in the final.

gOlden girl gabel leadS Canada eaST & glOuCeSTerOttawa’s Jennifer Gabel scored two assists in Canada East’s 6-2 gold medal match victory over Finland at the under-19 world ringette cham-pionships during the holiday school break in London, Ont. The team captain had another goal and nine assists as her group went undefeated in seven matches at the competition and ended a decade of dominance by the Finns. The 19-year-old sits fourth in scoring for Gloucester Dev-ils of National Ringette League, who also ended a long losing streak of numerous years against the Ottawa Ice with a 4-3 overtime victory on Dec. 22 at Ray Friel. Glou-

cester is now two points back of Ottawa with two games in hand for second overall in NRL.

deSfOrgeS CrOwned COnSeCuTiVe CraSHed CHampiOn On the heels of her Red Bull Crashed Ice world championship vic-tory last year in Quebec City, University of Ottawa Gee-Gees wo-men’s hockey captain Fannie Desforges continued her dominance on the extreme downhill skating circuit with a victory at Niagara Falls in December. Fellow Gee-Gees Dominique Lefebvre and Alicia Blomberg also finished in the top-8. Desforges took home $3,000 for the victory. The next women’s Crashed Ice event will be March 16 in Quebec City.

The National Capital Industrial Soccer League recently announced a tentative agree-ment to form a partnership with the City of Ottawa and build an artificial turf, full-illuminated soccer field at the Richcraft Recre-

ation Centre in north Kanata. The complex will be located next to Morgan’s Grant and is expected to open in spring 2014.

8 OTTawa ulTimaTe aTHleTeS make Team Canada gradeEight Ottawa players were named to the Canadian teams for the 2013 under-23 ultimate world championships July 22-28 in Toronto. In-cluded on the rosters are Mathew Goodkey and Sara Lawlor (mixed team), Carson Turner, Ben Mussell and Nick Boucher (open), and Dominique Rioux, Kaylee Sparks and Vivianne Fortin (women’s).

A CIS-record 9,720 fans packed Scoti-abank Place for the first edition of what’s now become an annual tradition, the Cap-ital Hoops Classic. Only the men came to play in this first

showdown between the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and the Carleton Ravens (a wo-men’s game has now been added as well), but it was perhaps the most classic contest of the bunch. Stuart Turnbull led a late comeback

charge, but Josh Gibson-Bascombe drove the Gee-Gees to a 64-62 nail-biter win – the only time Ottawa has trumped Carleton in Capital Hoops action to this day...

Gee-Gees steal first Capital Hoops

Read the full version of this column by ottawa writer adrien Leduc on sportsottawa.com

Ottawa native Louis Gauthier was a rookie Gee-Gee at the inaugural Capital Hoops Classic in 2007.

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Ottawa deaf-blind speed skater Kevin Frost completed his first 42 km marathon at a December competition in Lake Placid, NY. Racing able-bodied competitors, the

45-year-old earned a silver medal in that event and a bronze in a sprint competition. Frost is now prepar-ing for international events in Scotland and Russia for skaters with visual-impairments, as well as the Winter-lude triathlon where he’ll be part of a blind relay team.

1ST maraTHOn On SkaTeS raCe fOr 45-yr-Old

Competing at the Olympic Games is the ultimate button for Rachel Ho-man’s Ottawa Curling Club rink.

“We usually set our goals pretty high,” notes the team skip. “Every year, since we became a team, the Olympics has been our goal.”

Homan, along with lead Lisa Weagle, second Alison Kreviazuk and third Emma Miskew, could take another big step on that journey with a solid performance at this year’s Ca-nadian championships.

Having advanced safely through the regionals with a perfect 4-0 record on Jan. 6 in Omemee north of Peter-borough, the Jan. 21-27 provincials in Kitchener-Waterloo are the only hurdle left in order to claim a berth at the Feb. 16-24 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kingston.

It’s been an excellent season up to this point already for Team Ho-man. Dominating the November 2012 Grand Slam of Curling in Brantford gave the team “a whole pile of points” – as coach Earle Morris describes it – in its quest to receive an auto-matic berth into next year’s Canadian Olympic team trials.

ranked #1 in Canada

Team Homan knocked off Tracy Horgan, Eve Muirhead and Chelsea Carey in the playoff round to win their first career grand slam event and climb to the top of the Canadian Team Ranking System and the World Curl-ing Tour rankings.

“For them to play their best when it really mattered was really neat,” re-flects Morris, who coached Homan to world junior silver in 2010.

It was a different tale at last year’s

provincials. Team Homan went un-defeated leading up to the final – beat-ing Horgan’s rink twice on the way – before Horgan pulled out a two-point win in the final end of the champion-ship match.

“We have been working every day on team dynamics and strategy,” highlights 23-year-old Homan, who works as a personal trainer. “We are a different team with more experience.”

The return of their long-time coach after a two-year hiatus is an-other team strategy for success.

“I was trying to take a year off and got pulled in by the Jennifer Jones rink,” Morris explains. “So, I was fi-nally taking my year off, after that, when the girls asked me to lunch.”

That was in mid-August, and the former military officer and current curling pro at the Ottawa Curling Club is enthusiastic about the team and his role in their bid for the Olympics.

“I really love to coach, I really love this sport, and, I really love these girls,” notes the father of Van-couver 2010 Olympic gold medalist John Morris, the third for Kevin Martin’s rink.

Curling’S all in THe familyBeyond the obvious ties of a com-

mon goal and long-term commitment, the quartet all have a family-bound love of the sport of curling. Each of the four Team Homan members began their curling careers at a tender age under the guidance of a family mem-ber.

With the Scotties nearby in King-ston this year, there’s no doubt the Ottawa athletes would love to be able to bring a hometown crowd along to watch them.

“It would be really nice to be so close,” notes 24-year-old Kreviazuk, whose grandmother signed her up for a bonspiel for fun when she was young. “Ever since we got together, our parents have taken turns coming to our competitions but this means that my Grandma Nat could come.”

Weagle was introduced to the sport by her parents when she was eight years old.

“I really liked it and I was happy because I didn’t have to go to gym-nastics anymore,” smiles the 27-year-old Sport Canada communications officer.

The balancing act between work and sport responsibilities has now become Weagle’s primary challenge, along with the burden of travel, hotel bills and entry fees.

“We are lucky to have good spon-sors,” she adds.

Curling is especially demanding on team members in terms of time commitment, says Miskew, 23.

“There’s four of us and only four of us,” emphasizes the Canadian Sen-ate worker who began curling at age 5. “We always have to be there – there’s no extra players like on other teams.”

According to coach Morris, the added years and responsibilities of work have only made this rink better.

“Curling is a sport, at the Olympic level, where you peak between the ages of 29 and 39,” he maintains. “They are continuing on their path of excellence at a very young age.”

8 eliteTeam Homan eyes Scotties in Kingston, then Sochi

By Anne Duggan

Where Canada’s Elite Teams Come to Prove Themselves

August 2-5 ,2013th

JUNIOR - U13, U14SENIOR - U15, U16, U17

www.collegesoccershowcase.cainfo@collegesoccershowcase.ca

Tel. 613.692.4179 ext. 111

Lisa Weagle Rachel Homan

Emma Miskew Alison Kreviazukphotos: dan plouffe