HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 2, #9 June 2013

STAR HANGS ON TO TOP SPOT

TOURNEY TIME FOR FOOTIES

TRACK & FIELD PODIUM CHARGE

P. 2

P. 6

P. 12

Ottawa native Sam Zakutney won his third-straight national title in front of a hometown gymnastics nationals crowd.

There was high drama on the soccer pitch as numerous local clubs hosted their an-nual tournaments recently.

Zack Kerr was responsible for one of four gold medals won by local athletes at the OFSAA track-and-field championships.

CANADA’S CAPITAL FOR RUGBY

P. 8Ottawa’s been a hotbed for rugby re-cently, hosting OFSAA, the Pacific Na-tions Cup and club action kicking off.

For most families, having a 13-year-old daughter who was the fastest woman under age 20 in the Ottawa Race Weekend 10k would be out of the ordinary. In the McCulloch family, it’s par for the course.

Shona McCulloch finished the 10 km course alongside the Rideau Canal with a time of 39 minutes and 39 seconds on May 25. First in her 11-13 age group, she also finished ahead of the entire female 14-16 and 17-19 age classes as well.

Meanwhile, her sister, 12-year-old Kory McCulloch, ran the 5k that same day, finishing with a time of 19:55.5, also coming first in the 11-13 age group and beating the entire 14-16 age group above her.

“It gives us satisfaction, that we achieved something really big,” Shona smiles. “It makes me feel really special.”

The sisters weren’t targeting the type of results they achieved.

“I wasn’t expecting to do that well,” Kory highlights. “I was trying to chal-lenge myself and do the best that I could, but doing that well was a little bit of a shock to me.”

Though Shona and Kory both fin-ished at the top of their age groups, the Race Weekend wasn’t the only athletic competition on their schedule. On the same Saturday as the 10K, Shona played an Ontario Youth Soccer League game in the province’s highest competitive loop.

The Ottawa South United midfielder

played a 90-minute match in the after-noon before her 6:30 p.m. race. Shona says she was nervous about competing in two events in the same day, especially since midfielders are characteristically the best endurance runners on a soccer team, having to travel the most distance per game.

But after her team played a strong game in a 1-1 tie, she began the 10k and her worries soon faded.

“When I was running I was just like: ‘Okay, this is fine,’” recalls Shona, who turned 14 a few days after the race. “It was really fun.”

The McCulloch sisters are both avid soccer players, and it was training for soccer that first got them into running. Shona considers running to have now taken over as her principal athletic in-terest, and she plans to one day compete in the Ottawa Marathon.

Kory and Shona are primarily self-trained, rather than joining a club like most other runners of their level. They do however recognize that soccer and school coaches have played a huge role in their athletic success. In particular, Shona says that training with the high school track team of Longfield-Davidson Heights has been very beneficial.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m the un-derdog and I want to prove myself when I’m running with older girls,” notes the Grade 7 LDH student.

ENERGIZERS continues on p.10

By Jonah Brunet

McCulloch math:90-minute soccer match + 10 km run + 13-year-old legs = –40 mins & fastest Race Weekend female under age 20Younger sister, 12, keeps pace to claim 5k age group crown

photo: steve kingsman

photo: steve kingsman

It’s been a season full of surprises for the Capital Wave water polo club in its first year of operation. There was the somewhat unexpected com-petitive success in their rookie campaign, which included provincial and national medal wins for different age groups.

Then there was the shock of being asked to co-host the 22-and-under national championships in May at the Gatineau Sports Centre. And for the Capital Wave players, the surprise was an unexpected appearance by a Team Canada player in their lineup when the event rolled around.

Returning from a tendon tear in her shoulder, Rebekka Steenkamer saw her first ac-tion of 2012 with the Wave. The 20-year-old Ottawa native had never played for the new club in town, but was invited

2

The hometown star didn’t dis-appoint at the Canadian Gymnastics Championships May 17-25 at Car-leton University, as Sam Zakutney closed out his Tyro career with a third-straight all-around gold medal.

The 14-year-old from the Na-tional Capital Boys Competitive Gymnastics Academy repeated as Age 13-14 high-performance national champ, which was his exact goal be-fore graduating to the Junior age class.

“After I won the gold, I kind of got relieved, thinking, ‘OK, finally the lower levels are out of the way and now I’m ready for the big leagues,” reflects Zakutney, who wanted to leave one final mark on the Tyro class.

“Because I had done all the routines the year before, my goal was to show how the Tyro routines were meant to be done,” adds the athlete who’s targeting a Youth Olympic Games appearance next year. “Just to show them how it’s supposed to be done as kind of a role model for the other kids who just started.”

Zakutney got his fair share of local support from the crowd, which took some getting used to at the start

of competition, he notes.“It started off a little bit nerve

racking because they all created a lot of noise and I couldn’t concentrate that well,” explains Zakutney, who placed in the top-3 on all apparatuses, including floor gold. “But I was able

to not think about it and just worry about the steps and not worry too much about everybody watching me.”

BOUNCING TYO BROTHERS WIN BIG

On trampoline, brothers Vin-cent and Benjamin Tyo captured five medals in five events, including the gold they together won in men’s na-tional-level synchro.

“It was pretty special for Vincent and me,” explains Benjamin, 15. “Not many people get to do synchro as brothers.”

The former Spring Action athletes who now train out of Unigym in Gatineau credit their close broth-erly relationship for their success at this year’s na-tionals.

“You feel comfortable with them, you know how they feel and

you understand each other,” high-lights 14-year-old Vincent, noting that having a brother present is a big help in training and at competitions.

The pair has trained together for four years but took a couple years off from performing synchro prior to na-tionals.

“We decided to reunite again this year to see how it would go and it turned out really well,” explains Ben-jamin.

The Tyos finished 1-2 in the men’s espoir category, with Vincent taking top prize and also earning sil-

ver in the men’s national double mimi trampoline.

OGC ATHLETE’S PODIUM PINNACLE

In the national open men’s artistic gymnastics category, Taylor Spriggs of Ottawa Gymnastics Centre earned all-around silver, taking gold on pom-mel horse – a repeat crown from last year in Regina – and silver on vault.

“I was really trying to get on the podium,” signal Spriggs. “That was my ultimate goal.”

Spriggs was pleased to improve on his fifth-place all-around showing from 2012.

“It feels great, it was a great im-provement from last year,” he notes. “I cleaned up the routines that I already had. It was mostly just im-proving the form for each routine.”

Like Zakutney and the Tyo broth-ers, Spriggs says this year’s competi-tion had a different feel to it because of the hometown crowd.

“I liked competing in front of my family,” highlights the first-year Car-leton University student who com-peted in the same fieldhouse where he wrote his final exams.

Also winning medals were Lucinda Nowell of the Kanata Rhythmic Gymnastics Club (silver for sr. national clubs, and fourth all-around) and OGC’s Bruno Webster (silver in national open parallel bars).

COMMUNITY CLUBSSeamless Sam wins 3rd national title at home

By Brendan McConnell

photo: steve kingsman

OTTAWA ATHLETE RESULTS AT CANADIAN GYMNASTICS CHAMPIONSHIPSLucinda NowellKanataRhythmic4th AA (Sr. Nat.)Silver clubs

Samuel ZakutneyNational CapitalMen’s Artistic1st AA (Tyro)Gold floor, silver vault, high bar & parallel bars, bronze pommel & rings

Vincent TyoUnigymTrampoline1st (Men’s Espoir)2nd DMT (Men’s Nat.)1st synchro (Men’s Nat.)

Benjamin TyoUnigymTrampoline2nd (Men’s Espoir)4th DMT (Men’s Espoir)1st synchro (Men’s Nat.)

Jonathan ArsenaultSpring ActionTrampoline4th (Men’s Espoir)6th DMT (Men’s Nat.)5th synchro (Men’s Nat.)

Taylor Jackle SpriggsOttawaMen’s Artistic2nd AA (Nat. Open)Silver vault, gold pommel

Steven WadeSpring ActionTrampoline21st (Men’s Nat.)

Bruno WebsterOttawaMen’s Artistic10th AA (Nat. Open)Silver parallel bars

Tyler GlavindTumblersMen’s Artistic16th AA (Nat. Open)

Jaroslav HojkaOttawaMen’s Artistic11th AA (Sr. HP)

Team Canada player joins Wave for nationalsBy Dan Plouffe

POLO continues on p.11

Visit SportsOttawa.com to see video of Sam Zak-utney’s winning routines.

photo: dan plouffe

National capital gymnast Sam Zakutney said he was motivated to show the Tyro routines the way they were meant to be as he chased after a repeat national title at the May 17-25 Canadian Gymnastics Championships at Carleton University.

to join the squad by her former coach of three years with the Ottawa Titans, Celso Rojas, now the Wave’s club head coach.

“I’ve been very excited to come back and play,” notes Steenkamer, who’s used to a lifestyle where she eats, breathes and sleeps water polo while training with the na-tional team.

Steenkamer moved to Team Canada’s home base in Montreal in September 2011 to join a program that’s known

quite a bit of success in recent years, including silver and bronze medal wins amongst the past four world champion-ships.

“It’s really hard to put into words,” she says. “It’s awe-some knowing that you’re part of this amazing group of girls that have accomplished so much.”

And of course there’s always a carrot dangling to provide motivation.

With the FIVB World League being con-tested over the course of June and July across the globe, Canada’s men’s national team has a gruel-ing, three-country campaign ahead of them – one that will test the mental and physical endurance of our country’s volleyball elite.

But competing on foreign soil at this level of competition is nothing new for the lone Ottawa native on Team Canada, Adam Simac.

The 29-year-old middle has been playing professional volleyball in Europe for four years, a career that’s landed him in Germany, Slovenia, Austria and, most recently, Turkey.

“Volleyball is a lot more popular there than it is here,” notes Simac, who won a Turkish pro league title this past season with Izmir. “Kids would come out to every match and they knew who every player was.”

“I even had somebody make a Facebook fan page for me,” he laughs. “It’s very, very flattering.”

Simac says it’s a fairly big gear shift from playing for a pro club in Europe to competing with Gatineau-based Team Canada, who desperately want to make their country’s first appearance at the Olympic Games since 1992 come Rio 2016.

“Going from the national team, everybody’s

here for the same reason,” highlights the Sir Wil-frid Laurier Secondary School grad who never played club volleyball before joining the Queen’s Golden Gaels. “It’s not about how much money you get when you’re on the national team, it’s playing because you get to wear the maple leaf and you’re playing for your country.

“Overseas you have different pressures with guys getting different amounts of money and the club heaping expectations on you. If you don’t win then they might withhold your next paycheck or something like that.”

Team Canada, ranked 18th in the world, opened World League play by splitting pairs of

matches with the Netherlands and Portugal in Quebec City and Mississauga. Following June 14-15 matches against South Korea in Mississauga, Canada will ship off to Japan and Finland.

The intense travel time and schedule is al-ways a major concern for player health, explains Canadian head coach Glenn Hoag.

“Because they’re flying around on a plane so much they get pretty stiff,” says Hoag, who coached Simac’s team in Turkey. “So we have protocols during warm up and lots of stretching.”

Canada warmed up for World League with a trio of matches against the Turkish national team, including two they won in Gatineau.

LORTIE BROTHERS MAKE TEAM CANADA

A pair of familiar faces in the local volleyball community were part of the crowd at the exhibi-tions, but Jérémie and Bruno Lortie were there on business. They each claimed spots on Canada’s FISU and junior national teams respectively.

“I was really overjoyed that I made the team,” says Bruno, who won a CIS national title in his rookie season alongside his older brother a couple months ago. “You have university ball then you have the national team then you go play pro after that. It’s the first step of the big step so I’m really happy about this.”

33ELITE

Volleyball world traveller set for Canada’s big tripBy Brendan McConnell

Field lacrosse may be a relat-ively new sport for the NCSSAA but two national capital high school teams made a big impact at OFSAA this year with an antique-bronze medal win and an appearance in the consolation final.

Ottawa’s entries into the June 4-5 tournament at Bell High School and the Nepean Sportsplex were the St. Mark Lions and the John McCrae Bulldogs – the city champions this year following an undefeated season in the ‘A/AA’ national capital ranks.

After going 2-1 in the round robin matches to qualify for the semi-finals, the Bulldogs fell in their next two games to finish fourth.

John McCrae coach Paul Leck says he couldn’t have been happier with his team’s play at the event.

“Our goal at the beginning of the year was to make OFSAA and when we got there, our next goal was to make it to a medal round,” he explains. “We accomplished that so I’m proud.”

Making their OFSAA field lacrosse debut, the Bulldogs twice faced off against a highly-skilled McKinnon Park team that boasted a national-level player within their ranks and went on to claim bronze behind champion Holy Cross.

“These are all junior A and ju-nior B players so the skill level was so much more intense than what we get through the year but I figured

we could compete and we did,” adds Leck, who treasured getting to experience OFSAA with his 11 seniors. “A lot of them have been with me since Grade 9 or 10 so I’m just happy for them that they had a chance to witness an OFSAA tour-nament and place this high up.”

LIONS PLAY MAXIMUM GAMES

The St. Mark Lions also had a wild ride on the second day of OFSAA competition. After falling behind in the consolation semifinal 5-4, the Lions managed to tie the game up in the dying seconds and send the game to overtime. This sparked an intense string of three overtimes that eventually led to a St. Mark victory in sudden death.

In the consolation final, the

Lions racked up a commanding lead against Adam Scott S.S. of Peter-borough before dropping a string of goals to eventually lose by a slim two-goal margin, a satisfactory end result in the eyes of St. Mark head coach Stacey Simpson.

“The level of play my guys have come to even in one season in phe-nomenal,” says Simpson, noting that the highlight of the year for her was seeing her players grow their skills and learn new things on the field.

“I wanted them to be competit-ive,” adds Simpson, who doubled as OFSAA convener and felt positively about how the tournament rolled out on the organizational side. “I wanted them to know that they could play at different levels and I wanted them to have fun.”

It was an unconventional approach for the Ottawa Guardsmen that may have appeared questionable at the start of the year. Instead of taking on oppon-ents their own age, the team of Grade 10s would try their hand against players a year older in the under-17 category.

Come the end of the season though, it was clear why they’d made the de-cision as they walked away with the Div. 1 gold medal at the Ontario Cup provincial basketball championships.

“From a developmental standpoint, it made sense to play at a higher level,” explained coach Aaron Blakely. “It was just a special team.”

With four local players having been invited to the Canadian U16 national team selection camp – Eddie Ekiyor, Malik Turenne, Maxime Boursiquot and Jacques Lukusa, who all wound up hitting double-digit point totals in the championship game victory – it was clear this age group offered no ordin-ary talent. The Guardsmen earned the top seed heading into the May 24-26 Ontario Cup in Niagara and didn’t dis-

appoint, winning by 8, 12 and 10 in the preliminary round and then knocking off Toronto Triple Threat 49-45 in the semi-finals, followed by an 82-77 vic-tory over Motion TB in the final.

“There were a lot of great kids who worked really hard,” Blakely high-lighted. “It was fun to cap it off with a provincial title.”

Blakely lauded the Guardsmen program and the coaching mentorship provided by Carleton Ravens bench boss and club president Dave Smart, and others involved such as Shawn McCleery, Rob Smart, Dean Petridis and Manny Furtado. He said Rob Smart’s insights, in particular, paid dividends in his team’s close play-off-round games.

“It’s a really unique, special team. I feel blessed to be involved with it,” Blakely emphasized.

Ekiyor and Turenne will now wear the maple leaf for the FIBA Americas U16 men’s basketball championships beginning June 11 in Uruguay. The team is coached by Dave DeAveiro, the former University of Ottawa Gee-Gees coach.

Ottawa teams win respect, medal at OFSAABy Brendan McConnell

By Dan Plouffe

‘Special’ Guardsmen win Ontario Cup

photo: brendan mcconnell

The John McCrae Bulldogs won antique-bronze at the OFSAA ‘A/AA’ field lacrosse festival in Ottawa.

photo provided

Ottawa native Adam Simac (left) rejects a Turkish player’s attack during an exhibition match at the National Team Training Centre in Gatineau. The game served as a warm-up for Team Canada in ad-vance of World League play, which takes place in June and July. Canada will play road games in Japan and Finland, and hosts the Netherlands, Portugal and South Korea.

photo: dan plouffe

4

The Ottawa Fury’s quest for a double championship season is off to a solid start, as both its W-League and PDL teams kicked off their respective campaigns with a trio of wins and a tie.

The thought of a pair of United Soccer League titles for the club’s premiere men’s and women’s teams isn’t a far-fetched dream. The Fury ladies are the defending league champions, having captured their first championship on their home field last year at Algonquin College.

And the boys, quarter-finalists in last year’s 73-team Premiere Development League, have received a boost from players drawn to the possibility of a professional contract with Ottawa Fury FC, the North American Soccer League franchise that will begin play next summer at Lansdowne Park.

“This is an exciting time for soccer in Ot-tawa,” says Fury owner and CEO John Pugh.

The Fury have never won a PDL cham-pionship before, but they’ve added several top players from rival PDL clubs, including midfielder Carl Haworth, who won a title with London FC last year.

“It was time to try something new,” Haworth explains. “And with the new NASL team next year, the opportunity to potentially play professionally in Canada is a big drawing point.

“A few guys have a couple years left at school and have to finish up there but essen-tially the consensus is that everyone wants

to make that leap to the next level and the Ottawa FC.”

Midfielder Jordian Farahani agrees that the allure of potentially landing a pro con-tract was a major selling point for him and many of the new players on the team. Fara-hani joins the Ottawa Fury from the PDL’s Thunder Bay Chill and, like Haworth, is hoping to show the club what he’s made of.

“If I’m playing and we’re winning and I’m playing well then I’m going to get some recognition,” Farahani signals. “If you’re winning and you’re on the best team in the PDL, then you’ve got to think you have a chance to go to the next level.”

In his second year back in the head coach’s role, PDL coach Stephen O’Kane says his expectation is to “progress a little

further than we did last year” and his hope is to experience what W-League coach Dom Oliveri did last year.

“It’s a great feeling and it’s one that I would like to feel again with these players,” notes Oliveri, whose squad is once again backed by Fury goalkeeping legend Jas-mine Phillips of Ottawa.

The leading goal scorers for the men’s and women’s squads – Yannis Becker and Emily Gielnik – hail from Germany and Australia respectively, which provides a taste of some of the international flavour on both teams, whose players are providing housing in Ottawa.

The Fury women host matches on June 12, 15 and 22 this month, while the men have home games June 19 and 26.

Looming pro team prospects boost FuryBy Brendan McConnell

ELITE

photo: michael lapointe

Eddie Jones (left) and the Ottawa Fury were 3-0-1 after four games.

Shona ran what would have been an Ontario age-group record in the 1,500 m at the Ottawa-Carleton middle school championships in 4 minutes, 44 seconds, although the meet was not officially sanctioned by Athletics Ontario.

Shona does own the record for fastest 5k time of any ath-lete under age 20 at Emilie’s Run – a prominent annual wo-men’s-only race held the Saturday before the Canada Day weekend – with the 17:34.1 time she ran last year.

She and her sister seem to find success no matter the ath-letic venue, whether it’s running or soccer, or ringette, their wintertime sport of choice. Though they do most of their train-ing at home, the sisters try to avoid going on runs together.

“We like to keep our training separate because we’re very competitive people,” explains Shona, describing how her and Kory would battle to be in the lead whenever they went on joint runs.

The girls’ mother, Kathy, has participated in road races as long as a half-marathon, but says her running is nowhere near the calibre of her daughters.

“This is really their thing,” she signals. “They are self-motivated, and it’s something they take on because they love it.”

KARANJA WINS 1/2 MARATHON BY OVER 5 MINUTESThe 39th-annual Ottawa Race Weekend included 10 dif-

ferent races and brought in over 44,000 runners from around the world, with event courses running through some of the most scenic roadways of downtown Ottawa.

The winners of the signature races were Ethiopians Tariku Jufar and Yeshi Esayias (who won the men’s and wo-men’s marathons in 2:08:06.1 and 2:25:31.8 respectively), and Moroccans El Hassan El Abbassi and Malika Assahah (the men’s and women’s 10k champs in 27:36.6 and 31:45.7, while Vancouver’s Rob Watson and Thornhill’s Lioudmila Kortchaguina were the Canadian marathon champions.

Ottawa’s Josh Karanja, who’s eyeing elite status for his planned marathon debut in Toronto in October, won the half-marathon by over five minutes in 1:07:49.6. Mousa Kuraishi and Katiadou Wann in the Y Kids Marathon and Georgette Mink in the 5k were also local race winners.

continued from Front CoverENERGIZERS: Shared competitiveness

They entered the competition as the top seed, but there was no way the Louis-Riel Rebelles were favourites at the June 6-8 OFSAA girls’ soccer championships. Not when they had no substitutes with the minimum 11 players, no goal-keeper, and the task of playing seven games in three days if they wanted to go all the way.

For a variety of reasons – a few had school or family commit-ments, more were busy with their club or provincial soccer teams, and a handful of others had camps in other sports – many of the regu-lar Rebelles soccer team members couldn’t attend the three-day event in Windsor.

“The girls gave it everything they had,” says Matthieu Bazinet, Louis-Riel’s coach along with Yuuki Chartrand. “We had several injuries by the end of the tournament, so the girls were literally warriors. They got up and fought since they knew they didn’t have any subs.”

The Rebelles won their first, second and fourth games by 5-3, 3-0 and 4-0 scores, with a 1-0 loss in between. Without a natural goal-keeper available, Louis-Riel tried several players in net. First up was striker Kaitlyn Ball, the leading scorer for the West Ottawa Warriors Ontario Youth Soccer League team, for the first three games.

Then Naomi Bianco stepped in for the fourth game onwards. She al-lowed just one goal in each playoff contest as the Rebelles progressed through the quarter-finals with a 4-1 victory, the semi-finals with a 2-1 triumph, and then into penalty kicks of the championship game after playing to a 1-1 draw against Grimsby’s Blessed Trinity.

Bianco, a rookie centre-mid-fielder for the team, was too nervous

to stay in nets for the shootout, Bazinet ob-served, so he asked for vo-lunteers to jump in, and Bi-anca Brenning stepped up to the plate and was suddenly thrust into goal for the first time with the tournament on the line.

She got them seven shoot-ers deep until Blessed Trinity finally prevailed, but the shine of a silver medal for their efforts quickly erased any anguish over the defeat for the Rebelles.

“The girls were drained. But they gave it all they had and it was a wonderful game. I’m really proud of them,” Bazinet emphasizes. “We were really, really impressed. The girls were really happy. We weren’t expecting to go that far in the com-petition for sure.”

Arielle Kabangu, last year’s OYSL U17 leading scorer for FC Capital United, and current Cap U U17 player Sydney St-Germain were the main sources of offence for Louis-Riel, scoring 10 and six goals apiece at the tournament, while Christine Rebus was “spectacular” playing defensive sweeper, Bazinet notes.

The team rallied around its de-sire to play “some really nice soc-cer” despite being shorthanded, and they wound up getting that in spades with their gutsy effort, their coach adds.

“It was an incredible experience

for me and I’m sure the girls feel the same way,” Bazinet raves. “I’ve never been as proud to be a coach. I’ve never been as proud to be a teacher.”

5 FROM OTTAWA REACH 1/4S

The Nepean Knights went un-defeated in pool play at the OFSAA ‘AAA’ girls’ soccer championships as well, but ran into the defend-ing champions from Mississauga, Iona Catholic Secondary, in the quarter-finals, where they fell 3-1.

Ranked at the bottom of their pool, St. Pius came out on top of Group B with an undefeated record at the ‘AAA’ boys’ soccer champi-onships, but wound up falling in the quarter-finals on penalty kicks.

Louis-Riel was also a quarter-fi-nalist in boys’ ‘AA’ soccer, while Cairine Wilson and Franco-Ouest both reached the playoff round at the ‘AA’ girls’ soccer championships before falling in the quarter-finals – CW 5-4 on penalties.

Several local teams got off to hot starts in their Ontario Youth Soccer League seasons, in-cluding maybe the most unexpected of the group – the West Ottawa Warriors under-15 girls.

Both runners-up last year, the Ottawa South United U16 boys and Capital United U17 girls exploded out of the gate with undefeated re-cords in their first seven and three games re-spectively. But the Warriors – making their de-but in the province’s highest-level soccer league where Ottawa teams tend to struggled – kicked off their campaign against Ontario’s best with a victory and a pair of ties. Suddenly, the rookie OYSL team was sitting atop the standings.

“Our ultimate goal for this season is just to stay in the OYSL,” says Warriors assistant coach Stephanie Potter, whose squad went on to drop

its first game of the year to Pickering on June 2. “All the teams here play at a similar level – it’s a high level of soccer.”

The key to the team’s success in the first three games was a solid ground game and their stellar compete level, explains Potter. She says there’s always the desire to win but the most important thing this season for the girls is to develop their soccer skills, IQ and game time strategies.

One such strategy is to utilize the team’s speed and precision passing on the ground in-stead of playing a long air game, Potter adds. If they can do that effectively, then the posit-ive results should keep coming in, maintains the coach who works alongside Dave Foley, a former Canadian Soccer League player.

The OSU U15 girls, who earned the region’s first OYSL division title last year, are equal with

the Warriors in the standings, also sporting a 1-1-2 mark.

OSU U16 boys striker Kris Twardek left one final mark on the OYSL be-fore heading off to join Mill-wall FC’s youth academy in London, England, scoring seven goals in five games to help his Force squad to a 4-0-3 mark.

The possession-focused Capital United U17 girls have not yet allowed a goal in their three matches, earn-ing a pair of 1-0 victories and a 0-0 draw.

It’s been a struggle for most other local teams, each making the step up from re-

gional play this season. The Cumberland United U15 boys are the lone other squad with a .500 record, sitting at 2-2 through four games.

5

11-player Louis-Riel team wins silverBy Dan Plouffe

3 local OYSL teams jump to top of table

file photo

HIGH SCHOOLS

OSU Force Academy Zone

From sleeping in a swelter-ing tent surrounded by farm animals to being stranded on the side of the highway in southern France, it’s been quite the ride for Anna Munro and Alexis Martel-Lamothe as members of Team Ontario.

The OSU Force pair to Toronto just about every weekend from October to April to train with 23 other top players in the provincial under-15 girls’ pro-gram. They usually drive to Toronto on Fri-day evening to take part in practice sessions on Saturday and Sunday before making the return trip down Hwy. 401.

“It’s been a really good experience,” Munro signals. “I don’t think I’ve ever played against girls who are such good competition. It’s definitely helped me improve.”

For Martel-Lamothe, Team Ontario has given her the chance to learn a new position.

“I feel like I’m a better defensive player, and that I can also attack,” highlights Mar-tel-Lamothe, usually a midfielder for OSU, and a centre-back provincially.

The players and their families regularly stay at the same hotel when they’re in Toronto. That’s helped further solidify their friendship, which comes in quite handy.

“(The Toronto-based players) are always together and we only see them on the week-end,” notes Munro, a striker. “It’s a bit harder to be in the group, but we have each other, so that’s way better.”

The OSU players’ close bond was per-haps never more evident than the time they stayed at Munro’s aunt’s farm during a break between a training camp and matches against Quebec’s team. The girls decided to sleep outside in a tent.

“It was really hot, and you could hear the chickens and the hens. It was hilarious,” Martel-Lamothe describes. “We’ve had some bad experiences, but it’s brought us closer together.”

Earlier in the spring, Team Ontario toured

France, spending time mostly around Mar-seilles. They’d practice each morning, and then again in the afternoon unless they had a match. Their final contest came against the champions of a southern France women’s league, which Ontario won 1-0.

Munro and Martel-Lamothe reveled in ex-periencing a different brand of soccer. While it was mostly a “business” trip, the girls did get one day to be tourists, although that was partly spoiled when their bus got a flat tire on a deserted highway stretch en route to the beach.

“We had less time off than we were sup-posed to,” Munro recalls with a smile, and a hint of bitterness.

With a win, a loss and two ties, the girls have now kicked off their chase for a second consecutive Ontario Youth Soccer League division title under coach Widdgin Bernard, and will also begin their quest for a spot on Canada’s U17 national team this summer.

It can often be difficult for Ottawa players to get noticed for provincial and national team programs without the benefit of the GTA spotlight, which makes the girls’ accom-plishments all that much more impressive, says OSU Club President Bill Michalopulos.

“It’s a great testament to the hard work Anna and Alexis have put in – as well as all those involved in their development at OSU – to see what they’ve achieved,” Michalopulos highlights. “With the success their team achieved in the OYSL, and the way Anna and Alexis have performed as members of Team Ontario, this should help to pave the way for future players from our club, and from Ottawa, to gain these types of opportunities.”

OSU players Munro & Martel-Lamothe excel with Team Ontario

traveled

Alexis Martel-Lamothe (left) & Anna Munro.

By Brendan McConnell

photo: brendan mcconnell

Last year’s OYSL U17 league-leading scorer for FC Capital United, Arielle Kabangu was dominant for her Louis-Riel Rebelles, scor-ing 10 goals in seven OFSAA matches to win a silver medal.

6

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The Ottawa Internationals Soccer Club may actually fear hosting the 20th anniversary edi-tion of its massively popular Ottawa Icebreaker tournament next year. It’s almost unimaginable that the event could grow any bigger, but that’s a real possibility if the milestone event provides an even greater attraction for teams to enter.

It’s been several years since the tournament was split up onto two weekends to accommod-ate more entries. An incredible 249 teams re-gistered for the May 25-26 girls’ Icebreaker, and the June 1-2 event attracted an additional 184 boys’ teams.

Another stat that speaks to the tournament’s popularity: 15 different clubs from out of town earned girls’ division titles.

The West Ottawa Warriors were the lone

local club to claim a girls’ championship, with the U14 squad claiming the Snow Bank Nun-avut Section crown and the U18 team winning the Ice Pile Yukon Section.

It was a different story on the boys’ side as Ottawa clubs won the top prize in 10 categories. The host Internationals topped the U11 Snow Bank Nunavut Section and the U15 Snow Bank event, while the Warriors won a trio of divisions – U11 Ice Pile, U14 Snow Bank Nunavut Sec-tion and U13 Snow Bank Nunavut Section.

The Cumberland United Cobras also earned multiple titles with U14 and U18 Ice Pile vic-tories, while the Gloucester Hornets (U12 Ice Pile Nunavut Section), Nepean Hotspurs (U16 Ice Pile) and Ottawa South United (U16 Snow Bank) all won single titles.

COMMUNITY CLUBSIcebreaker kicks off tournament mania

photos: dan plouffe

The OSU Force Black 2003 girls danced their way to an undefeated record in group play at their club’s home tournament, the June 8-9 OSU Girls Nike Challenge Cup in Barrhaven. They ran into their OSU Force White counterparts in the semi-final playoff round, however, and fell 1-0. The Force White went on to win silver behind Monteuil Sparta. The OSU U10 Power topped Cumberland United for the U10 Tier 2 crown, and the Gloucester Hornets knocked off the host Force White team in the U11 Tier 1 final.

The boys’ U9 festival was one of eight divisions at the

18th-annual Nepean Hotspurs Friendship Tournament June 8-9 at Ben Franklin Park and

the Colonnade Road mini fields. For results, check

SportsOttawa.com .

As the Terry Fox Athletic Fa-cility welcomed track-and-field decathletes and heptathletes from across the Americas June 1-2 for the 2013 Pan Am Combined Events Cup competition, Patrick Arbour and Mark Chenery didn’t have very far to travel to compete for a top spot in

men’s decathlon. As longtime members of the

Ottawa Lions, Arbour and Chenery have spent years training together on the Terry Fox track. But for two days in June, it was no longer friendly teammates surrounding them, but instead a field of international ath-letes, many of whom they had never seen before.

“Having people you don’t know coming in makes it more like an ac-tual meet,” Chenery describes. “It’s not just another training day at your same old track.”

As friends, decathletes and teammates, Arbour and Chenery have a close training relationship. They’ve traveled to South Amer-ica and Europe together, and have competed at international meets as co-Canadian representatives of nu-merous occasions.

Both athletes agree that their training partnership has been very beneficial over the years, citing their tendency to feed off one another’s strengths.

“It’s great,” Chenery says. “We both have very different strengths, so it definitely helps us both dur-ing practices. I can watch what he does with the throws and then I can pull him around the track a little bit faster. It’s nice.”

“It’s a fun dynamic,” Arbour

adds. “The coaches can tell us what we need to do differently and can say, ‘try this and watch how Pat does it,’ or, ‘try this and watch how Chen does it.’”

At this year’s Pan Am Combined Events, Arbour placed seventh, three spots behind his performance last year, while Chenery used to meet to select-ively train some running and throw events.

Arbour accumulated an overall score of 7,183 during the rain-soaked, windy event, which was well off his personal best. Regardless, the 25-year-old notes that his score would have been good enough for a fourth- or fifth-place finish last year when several athletes skipped the event in the run-up to the Olympics, so his drop in placing was

reflective of a more competitive field for the second edition of the event that began last year, also in Ottawa.

Some of Arbour’s major point-grab-bers were discus, shot put and javelin, in which he placed first, second and fourth respectively. Despite a top-10, Arbour says he feels the meet could have gone better.

“The meet didn’t go as well as I would’ve thought or I would’ve liked but it was a good learning experience and my second best result in an inter-national event,” he highlights. “I was hoping to have a better day two result than I did. I was happy with day one but the weather on day two got to me a bit.”

7

Two young guns and a two-time Olympian from the Rideau Canoe Club represented Canada interna-tionally in May and early June, as Steven Jorens, Ben Tardioli and Madeline Schmidt collected several medals from competitions in Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic.

The athletes have one big thing in common besides where they train: all have the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics squarely on their minds.

A kayaking veteran who’s been in the sport for 16 years and atten-ded the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, 31-year-old Jorens raced for Canada’s men’s K4 (four-man kayak) 1,000-metre crew at World Cup #2 before an injury slowed him for the third World Cup, which wrapped up on June 2.

The Aurora, Ont. native is now gearing back up for the June 21-23 national team trials in Welland, Ont., which will be used to decide who goes to the ICF Sprint World Cham-pionships in late August.

“It’s pretty encouraging right

now because there’s about seven or eight guys who are all working towards making the team,” signals the Carleton University mechanical engineering student who owns the distinction of being the only na-tional team member to hold a pilot’s license. “I think it’s going to be a pretty exciting next few years.”

Tardioli and Schmidt are part of a young crop of national paddlers striving to keep Canada at the top of the paddling world for years to come.

Tardioli recently returned from the Piestany Race in Slovakia with the under-23 team in late May. He finished second with a time of 39.81 in the U23 C-1 (solo canoe) 200 m, and paired with teammate Antoine Meunier to narrowly defeat the host Slovaks and win the U23 C-2 200.

“Europe has pretty good depth for canoeing, it’s always good com-petition when you go there,” high-lights Tardioli, 23.

Ranked fifth nationally, Tardi-oli would like to earn a spot for this year’s world championships, which would advance his cause towards reaching the Ro 2016 Games in

three years’ time.“I would say I’m on that path,”

Tardioli remarks. “We’re young now, so in three years, we’ll be older, better, stronger. I would say this event is good experience for the Olympics.”

Kayaker Schmidt also had great success in Piestany, winning a silver medal in the junior K-1 200 m, an-other silver in the K-1 500, a bronze in the K1 1,000, and also teaming up with Andreanne Langlois to win gold in the U23 women’s K2 1,000. More recently, she helped the U23 K-4 team place fifth in Poland at the ICF World Cup 3.

“We were a lot closer to some of the crews we didn’t think we’d be that close to,” highlights Schmidt, 18. “I’ve never been at a senior World Cup before, so it was a pretty big experience.”

Schmidt and Tardioli are both solid bets to be wearing the maple leaf again later this summer, but this time it would be on home soil for the junior and U23 Canoe Sprint World Championships, set for Aug. 1-4 in Welland.

ELITERideau paddlers medal for Canada

Decathlon duo shine at home international meetBy Brendan McConnell

By Michael Lapointe

The West Ottawa Soccer Club hosted a set of girls’ U15 Ontario Cup matches at Wal-ter Baker Park on June 8-9, providing an op-

portunity for the Warrior girls to showcase their emergence as a team capable of com-peting against the province’s very best.

The Warriors won a pair of lopsided con-tests in the first round of Ontario Cup play, but came up short against Woodbridge, a vaunted opponent that competed in the Ontario Youth Soccer League championship game last year. But looking at the larger pic-ture, the squad was able to hang in against perhaps Ontario’s best team – another en-couraging sign to accompany the Warriors’ .500 record through the first four games of their maiden OYSL campaign.

It takes a lot of work and building blocks to compete at the highest levels, notes WOS club head coach Kristina Kiss, but the club is committed to reaching for the top as it con-tinues to grow. The success of the U15 girls’ group – the first squad to merge together un-der the West Ottawa banner as a pilot project prior to the club’s full amalgamation in 2010 – is “a good sign,” Kiss says.

“It’s not always necessarily that biggest is the best,” states the former Team Canada player, “but having more talent to choose from and to com-pete against seems to be helping our level.”

The key to w idespread compet i t ive success, Kiss maintains, is building from the ground up. Establish-ing first-rate youth system programming

has been a major focus for the club, she adds, along with better coaching and cur-riculum to ensure players go through the proper developmental steps from U4 through to adult age.

“It starts with our youth,” Kiss emphasizes. “We’ve been improving our programs there, and I think in a few years we’ll have even more teams challenging.”

BIG WORKLOAD TO BE THE BESTPlaying at the top provincial level is a ma-

jor commitment for all involved, but perhaps it isn’t greater for anyone than Taylor Beitz. Not only does she attend one or two goalkeep-er-specific sessions each week on top of her team practices, the Cornwall resident has to travel an hour-and-a-half each way to train with the Warriors.

For Beitz, the attraction to join the club was all about the opportunity to play against tougher competition.

“It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it,” says the Grade 9 student. “It’s a passion, so it doesn’t feel like it’s a job. It’s just a lot of fun.”

Beitz, who revels in the requirement to al-ways bring her ‘A’ game in the new setting, is impressed with the progress the Warriors are making.

“It’s coming along really, really well,” Beitz remarks. “We’re coming together as a team, and now that we’re being tested by the top teams, it’s nice to see that we can compete.”

West Ottawa Soccer ScoopWarriors emerge as strong challengers at top rung of Ontario soccer

Mark Chenery and training partner Patrick Arbour competed at the Pan Am Combined Events championships on the track they grew up on at Terry Fox Athletic Facility.

photo: brendan mcconnell

Maddie Schmidt (left) helped the Canadian K-4 wo-men’s boat to fifth place at World Cup #3 in Poland.

photo provided

PAN AM continues on p.12

(From left) Rugby Canada chair Pat Aldous, Canadian sport minister Bal Gosal, and Kathleen, Gordon and Cassie Stringer observe a moment of silence to honour the memory of Rowan Stringer prior to Canada’s June 5 match vs. Fiji. The Canadian men’s rugby team also wore black arm bands for Stringer during the game. The John McCrae Bulldogs captain died in May after suffering a head injury during a high school rugby match. Stringer was an exceptionally well-liked 17-year-old both at school, and with her Barrhaven Scottish club.

8 COMMUNITY CLUBS

As driving rain and wind pelted the ground of Twin Elm Rugby Park on June 7, the Ashbury Colts boys’ rugby team battled for a victory and to do something the team had never done - win a medal at OFSAA.

After falling to Moira High School of Belleville 10-0 in the semi-finals following two victories to open the tournament, Ashbury came out on top 15-5 in the bronze medal game against F.E. Madill Secondary School.

“I think the boys realized they accomplished something very spe-cial,” says Ashbury co-coach Ian Middleton. “But at the same time I think the boys realized they were also close to going a bit further.”

The Colts’ goal going into the tournament, Middleton notes, was to make a top four appearance.

“I know a lot of our students when they go on to play at univer-sity and they meet kids from various other schools they start to realize what some of these accomplishments mean,” highlights the coach of the team that was ranked sixth heading into the event.

With schools from across Ontario in the ‘A/AA’ and “AAA/AAAA’ cat-egories, Twin Elm Rugby Park hos-ted a total of 32 teams over a three-day span between June 5 and 7. The participating players also packed the stands for a Canada vs. Fiji Pacific Nations Cup match on the Wednesday evening at Twin Elm, which the home side won 20-18.

Of the 32 OFSAA teams, four Ottawa teams were present, includ-ing Glebe, St. Peter, Hillcrest, and, of course, Ashbury College.

A third-place finish, therefore, is quite the accomplishment for the

team that has a number of Grade 12 students looking to soon launch their university rugby careers, Middleton adds.

“You’re only as good as your last game,” he says. “But you’ll have these memories for the rest of your life, so I told them to make sure to leave nothing on the field.”

The bronze comes at the conclu-sion of a whirlwind season that saw the Colts travel to the Cayman Islands for a pre-season tour and continue to build momentum through the national capital regular season and playoffs.

“I’d say it was over the past two weeks that the boys really peaked and realized they could play with anybody in the province,” Middleton adds. “They played spectacular rugby.”

Ottawa’s three other entries to this year’s OFSAA tournament all fell in their first games to exit to the consol-ation side of the draw, with St. Peter

making it the furthest of the bunch thanks to a win followed by a loss.

The St. Peter girls’ team took it a step further in their ‘AAA/AAAA’ championships in Waterloo. After claiming their long-awaited first na-tional capital championship victory

over Ashbury, St. Peter stumbled in their first game at OFSAA but then went on to win four matches in a row to claim the consolation title.

Barrie Central were the boys’ ‘A/AA’ champions, while Brantford won the ‘AAA/AAAA’ prize.

Ashbury claims school’s first Ontario boys’ rugby medal at home OFSAABy Brendan McConnell

photo: steve kingsmanThe Canadian men’s rugby team treated 4,548 Twin Elm Rugby Park fans to a 20-18 victory over Fiji at a June 5 Pacific Nations Cup match. Aaron Carpenter, Harry Jones and Ray Barkwill scored tries for Canada and Connor Braid added a convert and a penalty goal as the home side prevailed in front of the crowd that featured many participants from the OFSAA boys’ rugby championships, also held in Richmond from June 5-7. Canada improved to 3-0 in Pacific Nations Cup play with a 36-27 win over Tonga in Kingston on June 8.

photo: steve kingsman

The Barrhaven Scottish are off to a blazing start in Quebec senior wo-men’s rugby league play, with the reserves squad (pictured, in blue) car-rying a 2-1 mark, and the super league team sporting an undefeated 3-0 record, having outscored their opponents by a combined score of 103-24 in those three victories. The Scottish and Ottawa Indians are both 1-2 in men’s super league play, while local clubs occupy all three top positions of the men’s first division, with the Ottawa Irish and Bytown Blues at 3-0 and Scottish at 2-1. Meanwhile, Eric Howard of the Ottawa Beavers and University of Guelph Gryphons was chosen as one of 12 players who will represent Canada at the inaugural FISU World University Games men’s rugby sevens tournament July 14-17 in Russia.

Clawing for the top

photo: dan plouffe

photo: brendan mcconnell

9

Despite visa troubles that forced her to miss the team event, Ottawa’s Mo Zhang emerged as Commonwealth table tennis singles champion at the May event in India. Zhang, the #5 seed, defeated two players from Singapore – the 2012 Olympic team bronze medalists – including a seven-set final that she won 11-8 in the deciding frame to become the first Canadian Commonwealth champion in the event’s 42-year history.

SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTS

ZHANG MAKES CANADIAN TABLE TENNIS HISTORY IN WINNING COMMONWEALTH

MAVERICKS CAPTURE VOLLEYBALL NATIONAL BRONZE

DESPRÉS WINS WEIGHTLIGHTING NATIONAL TITLE, HEADS TO PAN AMSOttawa’s Isabelle Després took gold in the women’s 63 kg at the Canadian weightlifting championships, solidifying her win with a 96 kg clean & jerk lift May 18-19 in Edmonton. Després now plans to attend the June 20-23 Pan American championships in Venezuela. Ian Haya placed second in the men’s 62 kg category, while JustLift training partners Nico Winter, Nancy Kozorezova and Christos Georgaras also had strong performances.

VANIER BALL HOCKEY WOMEN LEAD CANADA TO WORLD GOLDFormer University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s ice hockey captain Fannie Des-forges was Team Canada’s leading scorer at the world ball hockey championships as the host country came out on top at the June 4-9 event in St. John’s, NL. Other Ottawa team members included Nathalie Girouard, Jessica O’Grady, Danika Smith, Lesley McArthur, Alicia Blomberg, Elysia Desmier and Erika Pouliot, who all plied their trade with the Ottawa Vanier Women’s Ball Hockey League.

SYNCHRO’S BEST IN TOWNNearly 300 of Canada’s top synchro swimmers age 16-and-under were in Ottawa for the Canadian espoir championships, hosted by Gloucester Synchro May 29-June 2 at the Nepean Sportsplex. The ath-letes were chasing after spots on the age 13-15 national team, and they also got an up-close view of London 2012 Olympi-ans Stéphanie Leclair and Karine Thomas as the Gatineau pair

showed off their duet routine. The previous weekend, Gloucester finished third overall in the aggregate standings, just three placement points behind Mississauga and Waterloo, at the Ontario age group championships, hosted by Nepean Synchro. Gloucester won bronze in the 10-and-under, age 13-15 and age 16-20 categories and took bronze in age 11-12.

The Maverick Mustangs followed up their Ontario silver medal victory with a national bronze medal at May’s 18U national vol-leyball championships in Edmonton. The Fusion 17U boys were quarter-finalists at nationals, as were the Maverick Shotguns 18U girls, while the Maverick Outlaws won the Tier 2 title for ninth overall at the 16U girls’ Western Canadian Open,

replicating the result for the Maverick Trailblazers at the 16U girls’ Eastern Canadian Open, and the Maverick Bandits 14U boys won bronze at the Eastern competition.

Mathea Stevens reached the final round at a World Cup modern pentathlon event for the first time since early 2011 in May 12. Returning from injury, the 21-year-old placed 29th in Bud-apest, Hungary. “Being my first full pentathlon in a year, I’m really happy with my perform-ance,” the Rockland native who trains in Ottawa under national team coach John Hawes said in a Pentathlon Canada news release. “A personal best time in the pool shows that the time spent in the water during the recovery

from my foot injury paid off. I’m excited to get back to work on the other disciplines to find points in those areas as well.” The 2013 world championships are Aug. 19 in Taiwan. London 2012 11th-place finisher Melanie McCann is expected to attend that event.

STEVENS REACHES PENTATHLON WORLD CUP FINAL

Two local under-13 boys’ soccer teams traveled to France in May for a renowned international youth soccer tournament in Plomelin. The Nepean Hotspurs won a pair of matches over French clubs in eight out-ings en route to a 49th-place finish out of 72 teams, while the Ottawa Fury placed 66th. The squads faced teams from Israel, Belgium, Russia, Croatia and Brazil, amongst other nations, and were billeted with host

families during the event.

HOTSPURS & FURY TEST INTERNATIONAL FOES IN FRANCE

SIMAC, LORTIE TAGGED FOR TEAM CANADA VOLLEYBALL SPOTS

SKATING STARS VISIT NEPEANWorld championships pairs bronze medalists Eric Radford and Meagan Duhamel, Four Con-tinents men’s champion Kevin Reynolds and Canadian women’s bronze medalist Alaine Chartrand of the home club visited the Nepean Skating Club for a special event

on June 8. The day that included both on- and off-ice sessions was the brainchild of former Canadian international ice dancers and Gloucester Skating Club coaches Michael Coreno and Allie Hann-McCurdy, also consultants for Nepean. A goal of the event was to promote greater participation among males in figure skating. Organizers were pleased to see 17 athletes attend a boys-only session at the event that involved over 60 young skaters in total.

Ottawa’s Mike Woods placed second overall in the 122.16 km, 95-rider men’s race at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Gatineau cycling event on the May long weekend. Woods finished the Gatineau Park course in two hours, 49 minutes and 3 seconds – 41 seconds behind Garneau-Québécor teammate and captain Bruno Langlois.

LOSE THE SHOES BEACH SOCCER TOURNEY SET FOR JUNE 15The third-annual Lose The Shoes 3v3 soccer tournament in support of the Ott-awa Police Athletic League will take place on June 15 at Mooney’s Bay beach. Organized by Ottawa soccer player Julien Edwards, the event for players age 9+ will also be a qualifying tournament for the Challenge Sports 3v3 National Championship at Disney World. Visit proplussports.ca for more details.

Carp’s Joanna Brown earned a career-best fifth-place finish at a senior World Cup triathlon race on May 19 in Huatulco, Mexico. “I didn’t feel great, or even good, at any point and I had to constantly push through my discomfort and do my best,” Brown, who was sick for most of the week leading up to the race, said in an Own The Podium news release. Brown finished behind ath-letes from Brazil, Austria, Ukraine and Mexico in the 16-racer field. “I am slowly working my way up there, but I know it will be a constant climb that requires me to be patient, and learn from my mistakes and successes while trying to keep the whole picture in mind,” the University of Guelph student added.

BROWN FINISHES 5TH AT TRIATHLON WORLD CUP

INVADERS SPLIT FIRST 2 GAMES OF SEASONThe Ottawa Invaders are off to a 1-1 start in their Northern Football Conference campaign. Ottawa lost 27-16 loss to Montreal in the club’s home opener at Beckwith Park and won a 33-12 road game over the Toronto Raiders on June 8. The fourth-year Invaders have been runners-up the

past two seasons in NFC play. Ottawa hosts Durham and Tri City on June 15 and 22.

When Ingrid Meier-Villa signed up for a boxing marathon in April, she wasn’t sure if she was capable of completing the intense training. But her fear soon turned into a commit-ment to a sport that is gaining pop-ularity in Ottawa.

Meier-Villa is part of a group of athletes who trained and participated in the second-annual Boxathon at Fi-nal Round Fitness Gym on June 8 to raise money for the Children’s Hos-pital of Eastern Ontario.

“It is for an amazing cause and in-stead of just raising money, I wanted to push myself and actually particip-

ate,” says Meier-Villa. Almost 50 people took part in

the innovative fundraising initiative that incorporated months of regu-larly scheduled training sessions and fundraising pledges. The event drew participants with a variety of fitness levels, each directed by professional boxer Andy Gardiner in their training.

Event organizer Brad Stuart says the diversity of participants in the Boxathon made it unique.

“It’s amazing that you have the expertise and presence of a profes-sional boxer like Andy around to inspire and push everyone,” Stuart highlights. “He is an amazing athlete and person. But all of us are a team. We do everything together as a group, and that is what makes us special.”

The Boxathon itself involved a heavy-bag marathon in which par-ticipants punched the heavy bag for 10-second intervals, for 12 three-minute rounds, with a one-minute break between rounds, modeled after the structure of pro boxing matches.

For Ashley Mathieu, the motiv-ation to get involved was to support CHEO and help build awareness for the boxing community in Ottawa.

“CHEO was a second home to me as a kid and this is an opportun-ity to give back to CHEO in a sport

that I love,” Mathieu notes. “I spent 16 years of life in and out of CHEO and never had a chance to give some sweat back to CHEO since they put a lot of sweat into me.”

SHOWING SPORT’S ‘ACCESSIBILITY’

Organizers hoped the event would also act as a bridge between the sport and the community.

“Generally people don’t know how accessible boxing can be,” Stu-art explains. “It has been relegated to back alleys and church basements. But boxing is an amazing workout and such team atmosphere – people just don’t know about it.”

That was the case for Meier-Villa, who’s now thankful that the group at Final Round helped her step out of her comfort zone.

“It wasn’t on my bucket list for sure,” she smiles. “But I’m so glad that I did participate.”

The Boxathon gained some no-toriety from Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who was not able to attend the event but leant his support to the cause.

Last year, the Boxathon raised $25,000, and this year it helped CHEO establish a new record total for its annual telethon at over $6.7 million.

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

Editor@SportsOttawa.com

10

Team of the Month: Ottawa Under-10 Provincial Tennis TeamTeam members: (From left) Danica Bertrand, Pascal Tylek, Ray Xie and Owen Dunn.

About: Competing in the Ontario Tennis Association’s inaugural under-10 provincial tennis team championship in Burlington, the four-member Ottawa team assembled by coach Tony Milo defeated numerous Toronto-area teams en route to a place in the championship round. The team – who were the competition’s youngest and plan to return next year – placed fourth overall at the April event.

Athlete of the Month: Kayla MadukSport: Taekwon-Do

Club: Blackburn TKD

School/Grade: John McCrae SS, Gr. 11

About: The reigning world junior taekwon-do champion, Kayla Maduk will get the chance to defend her global title in October in Spain thanks to her double-gold medal performance at May’s national championships in Que-bec City. At the last worlds held in 2011, Maduk was the youngest female on the team and brought home the most medals for Canada (1 gold and 2 silver), but wants only gold this time. She maintains a top-notch blog at www.ikicklikeagirl.com

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 one-week Family Pass to the Y, while each member of the Team of the Month will receive one-visit passes.

Boxathon at Final Round helps CHEO to new record telethon totalBy Leah Larocque

YMCA-YMCA OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

STARS OF THE MONTH

Doc Hockey CornerLog on to

SportsOttawa.com to read this month’s Doc

Hockey Corner column on pro-tein shakes by Dr. Shayne Baylis.

The Capital Region Axemen are bucking the expansion franchise trend as Ottawa’s new Quebec Senior Lacrosse League team is off to a 4-3 start in their inaugural sea-son, including a perfect 4-0 home record. Most recently, the club won a pair of over-time contests over Vermont on the June 1 weekend. Former Gloucester Griffins jr. lacrosse player Tim Bergin is the league’s leading scorer with 31 points. The Axemen will put their undefeated home mark on the line against the Kahnawake Mohawks on Saturday, June 22 at Merivale Arena. It will be a bit of an incongruous homecoming for Ottawa native Callum Crawford, a Nepean Minor Lacrosse Association grad who finished this past season #4 in National Lacrosse League scoring with 95 points in 14 games. Crawford has seven goals and eight assists since joining Kahnawake after his Minnesota Swarm fell in the NLL semi-finals against champion Rochester.

Emphatic entrance for Axemen

photo: dean joncas

photo: dan plouffe

11

Between Kanata & Stittsville at 44 Iber Rd.

Meghan Heer,Provincial StreamLevel 6 Gymnast

ODPGymnast

OntarioDevelopment

ProgramGymnastsAges 6-7

Olympia Gymnastics – a home for young athletesNestled between Kanata and Stittsville

on Iber Road, it’s not always easy to spot Olympia Gymnastics, but as the club turns eight years old, it’s grown up immensely and built a deep connection with the sur-rounding community along the way.

“We’re not a secret any more,” notes Dezso Mesko, a Romanian-born former physical education teacher who founded Olympia in 2005. “We’ve got all the infrastructure – staff and equipment – you need. It’s really great seeing the facility fully setup and chil-dren practicing physical exercises in 2013.”

Olympia began as a very small club, but thanks to additional acquired space, equip-ment purchases and the recent installation of new lighting, it now features a full set of apparatuses in a bright atmosphere that is ready to service gymnasts of all ages and abilities.

There are a group of girls who started training with the club at the very begin-ning who are now fully-certified gymnastics coaches. It’s a sign of Olympia’s matur-ity that they’re teaching the “foundation sport” – one of three that Sport Canada en-courages all kids to try because gymnastics teaches agility, balance and coordination – to a new generation.

“The sport kept me active. I love the whole gymnastics environment and the concept of the competition,” says Meghan Heer, who now enjoys her role instructing. “I really like coaching and helping the younger kids grow into the sport and learn to love the sport like I do, and to stick with it the rest of their lives.”

The “amazing people” involved with Olympia are Heer’s favourite aspect of the club, especially the group of close friends she started out with eight years ago.

“We’re like sisters,” describes the 2012 and 2013 provincial vault silver medalist. “We spend so much time together. We can talk about anything with each other. I can trust them with anything. We treat each other ex-actly like family.”

Olympia provides not only a friendly at-mosphere, but also a competitive environ-ment for those looking to reach the top. Under Level 3 national-certified head coach Nausikaa Muresan, Emily Urbisci became the club’s first provincial champion in its short history in 2012, winning gold on floor in the Level 5, Age 14+ competition.

“The best part is that for the little ones, they now have role models to look up to who have the drive,” Mesko highlights. “They can see it’s possible.”

Mesko sends many thanks to the club’s staff, customers, and the community in the Kanata, Stittsville, Richmond and Carp area for helping build Olympia into the wonder-ful place it now is.

With programs ranging from introduct-ory to school age to competitive, fun-filled March Break and Summer Camps, birthday parties, and trampoline & tumbling classes, Olympia Gymnastics offers opportunities across the board to the community.

Visit www.olympiagymnastics.ca or call 613-836-9149 for more information.

A pair of 13-year-old Ottawa gymnasts earned first-place honours in their first appear-ances at the Eastern Canadian Gymnastics Championships, held May 9-13 in St, John’s, NL.

Nepean-Corona’s Anna Meech and Nich-olas Duggan from Tumblers Gymnastics Centre, both 13, won all-around gold medals in the women’s Provincial Level 3 and men’s Prov. L4 categories respectively.

For Meech, the trip to the top step of the podium at Easterns began with her fourth-place finish at the provincial championships, which snuck her in as the final Team Ontario qualifier.

“I was just shocked,” Meech says of her gold medal victory. “It was my first year there and I pushed myself and worked hard. I wanted to win gold.”

Meech originally followed in her mother’s footsteps as a dancer, but decided she wanted to try something different. She enrolled at Corona when she was 5 and continued to balance both dancing and gymnastics for as long as she could. But the time came when she had to choose one and ultimately, her passion for gymnastics steered her in that direction.

“(Gymnastics) challenges you,” explains Meech, who finished first on uneven bars and balance beam and second on floor. “It pushes your fears and makes you stronger. When I’m competing and I do well or I’m practicing cer-tain routines and I do well, it makes me proud. It’s exciting.”

Like Meech, Duggan couldn’t have been more thrilled with his first Easterns experience in Newfoundland.

“The whole year was leading up to this,” Duggan notes. “Now I can relax a little.”

Duggan has now trained at Tumblers for five years, and enjoys the sport’s challenging nature.

“I like learning new things,” he describes. “Gymnastics seemed kind of cool, so I tried it and I really like it. I’m good at it and I have great coaches and a lot of friends who help me.”

Duggan would like to qualify for the Cana-dian championships down the road and perhaps compete for Canada, but he certainly revels in having taken a big first step in that quest.

“For me, what I am really proud of is having a banner here with my name on it,” he smiles. “I’m just going to keep on training and if I make the national team, it will be great.”

MEDALS ABOUND FOR LOCAL GYMNASTS

Duggan’s Tumblers teammate Justin Perry also had a very successful Easterns, placing second all-around in the men’s national open category. Julie-Anne Fiset of Tumblers won sil-ver medals on bars and beam in the women’s Provincial Level 5 competition.

Six athletes from the Ottawa Gymnastics Centre also competed at the event. Arryn Jackle Spriggs collected medals on four apparatuses in men’s Prov. L3 – gold on parallel bars, silver on high bar and floor, and bronze in the rings event, which was won by teammate Alex St George.

Matthew Frosst took gold on vault and silver on rings in men’s national youth competition, while Mackenzie Cox won gold on vault in wo-men’s Prov. L4, and Adrianka Forrest captured gold on vault and bronze on beam in Prov. L5.

The Team Ontario members, which also included OGC’s Nathalie Joanette, all finished either first or second in the team event as well.

COMMUNITY CLUBS2 gymnasts win Eastern Canadian titles

By Anil Jhalliphoto : paul clarke

continued from p.2

POLO: 6th year on jr. national team for Steenkamer

Nicholas Duggan of Tumblers Gymnastics Centre won para-

llel bars gold, and silver on pommel horse and high

bar en route to the all- around title at the Eastern Canadian Championships.

“You’re working to go to the Olympics. When you think about it, it just gives you chills,” explains the centre forward. “It’s really intense, but it makes you love the sport even more because you know you’re working really hard to achieve your end goals, which is hopefully the Olympics.”

Steenkamer will attend the second biggest multi-sport event in the world this summer for the FISU World University Games in July, and then she’ll make her remarkable sixth and final appearance for the Cana-

dian junior women’s water polo team for August’s world championships.

“We have a really good team for both,” signals the Concordia University exercise science student. “I’m really looking forward to playing with those girls again. I hon-estly think we have a really good shot at winning, or get-ting a medal.”

The Wave faced a tall task at nationals, having very little preparation time in ad-vance. Steenkamer arrived only earlier in the week for a couple practices, while it was the same story for other uni-

versity students tied up with exams.

“It’s unfortunate. All these girls are all spread out everywhere,” explains Rojas, whose squad wound up finish-ing fourth of five teams at the event won by Calgary on the women’s side and Montreal’s CAMO men. “We just got to-gether the last week for prac-tices. It’s difficult.

“But this is great. Some of our kids are coming to watch the games, and it’s a good cal-ibre for them to see.”

Wave player Sarah McIl-veen was named to the tourna-ment all-star team.

12

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Thirteen was a lucky number for national capital athletes at the OFSAA track-and-field champi-onships. That’s how many medals local competitors took home from the June 6-8 high school provin-cials in Oshawa.

Charifa Labarang was the biggest Ottawa star. The Deslaur-iers student was the senior girls’ sprint queen, winning double-gold in the 100 and 200 metres.

The Louis-Riel midget boys’ 4x100 m relay team of Nicholas Renaud, Benjamin Dufour, Bedi Ndinsil and Jonathan Mufuta were the capital’s other golden sprint-ing sensations, while Hillcrest’s Zack Kerr won the senior boys’ pole vault by an impressive 35 cm to hit a world youth track-and-field championships qualifying standard with his 4.55 m vault.

National capital athletes won silver in two races, while the rest of the medals were bronze. Holy Trinity middle distance runner Owen Day kicked off his OFSAA career by making two trips to the podium with midget boys’ 1,500 m silver and 800 m bronze. And the Brookfield senior girls’ 4x100

m relay team of Emma Tashlin, Kye Fraser, Alex Telford and Clara Phillips placed second as well.

“We worked really hard,” re-ports Grade 10 student Emma Tashlin, one of three members of the team eligible to return next year. “There was lots of strength training and we worked well as a team to-gether. We com-municate well.”

T a s h l i n ’ s father, Craig Taylor, is a renowned local speed coach, and helped her relay team, but it was another Brook-field coach who earned an award at the event. The first time the hon-our was ever given out, Graydon Almstedt was unanimously voted as coach of the year by his peers.

Out of the bronze medalists, Claire Smith’s performance sticks out the most. The Glebe runner was the third of four athletes to dip under the 10-minute barrier and break an OFSAA record in the junior girls’ 3,000 m.

“Usually we get one thun-derstorm during OFSAA. This time it was really bad the whole first day,” notes Glebe coach Kirk Dillabaugh. “(On Day 2), we had nice cool temperatures, which was ideal for the distance runners. It was nice for these particular runners because conditions have been lousy for them all season.”

Smith was the lone national capital athlete to dip below an OFSAA record mark at the event.

HIGH SCHOOLS4 gold, 13 medals at OFSAA track

By Anne Duggan

photo: dan plouffe

Nicholas Renaud (left) and Jonathan Mufuta (right) of Louis-Riel won OFSAA midget boys’ 4x100 m relay gold along with teammates Benjamin Dufour and Bedi Ndinsil.

2013 NATIONAL CAPITAL OFSAA HIGH SCHOOL TRACK-AND-FIELD MEDALISTS

GOLD

Charifa LabarangDeslauriersSG 100 mSG 200 m

Nicholas Renaud, Benjamin Dufour, Bedi Ndinsil & Jonathan MufutaLouis-RielMB 4x100 m relay

Zack KerrHillcrestSB pole vault

SILVER

Emma Tashlin, Kye Fraser, Alex Telford & Clara PhillipsBrookfieldSG 4x100 m relay

Owen DayHoly TrinityMB 1,500 m

BRONZE

Remy WadeGlebeMG 100 m

Erinn Stenman-FaheyCanterburyJG 800 m

Claire SmithGlebeJG 3,000 m

Olivia RobertsonBrookfieldSG 3,000 m

Alexandra TierneySacred HeartSG 400 m hurdles

Hans LafleurFranco-CitéSB high jump

Owen DayHoly TrinityMB 800 m

Chenery, who didn’t register a final result because he only com-peted in some of the events, had an impressive fourth-place finish in the 400 m dash – one of the events he was training for.

Arbour will head to the FISU World University Games later this summer, while Chenery’s principal focus will be the Canadian Track-and-Field Championships at the end of June in Moncton. Both athletes say they have their long-term sights set on the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Cuba’s Yordanis Garcia won the men’s decathlon with 8,141 points, while fellow Cuban Yorgeli Rodriguez took the women’s hep-tathlon crown with 5,947 points. Jen Cotten was the top Canadian in the heptathlon, finishing sixth.

PAN AM: Nationals & FISU Games on tapcontinued from p.7