Ottawa Sportspage

The Rideau Canoe Club hosted over 1,200 paddlers from across the country for the 2015 Canadian Sprint Canoe Kayak Championships, and they beat all of ’em.

For the first time in 13 years, the purple-and-white-clad athletes from Mooney’s Bay won the burgee – a giant flag awarded to the club accu-mulating the most overall points throughout the five-day, 392-race festival.

Rideau earned 710 points to beat 10-time national champion Burloak’s 616 total at the Aug. 25-29 event, and then blasted the competition to top the standings for the Aug. 30 Cana-dian Masters Championships as well.

Rideau head coach Wade Far-quharson hailed the event as “a true club championship,” noting that pad-dlers from all divisions got to earn points for their squads.

“Normally, it’s like a pyramid,”

he explains, “with high-performance athletes at the top. With this event, though, we invert the pyramid and everyone races.”

Farquharson says it was great to see athletes like four-time Olympic medallist Adam van Koeverden put on their respective club’s singlets for the event because “canoeing in Canada is really a canoe club. It’s not a provincial team. It’s not the national team.”

With 19 gold, 16 silver and 13 bronze for 48 medals in total across all categories to celebrate, Farquhar-son was hesitant to highlight any standout Rideau paddlers in particu-lar, although he offered a short (and fairly obvious) reason for the club’s success: “Rideau women dominated this weekend.”

This was especially true for the club’s female under-19 kayakers. Fifteen Rideau boats made it to the seven finals in the division. In those seven races, they won six golds.

Combining for 10 medal wins, Kate Braddon, Rowan Hardy-Kavanagh, August Sibthorpe and Naomi Van Walraven led the way to the division crown, while the Rideau junior women and U17 men also topped their classes.

The club’s success came at a slight price, however: by late Sat-urday afternoon, coach Stuart Wilson had the scratchy voice of a pack-a-day smoker.

“We’ve been doing really well, and I just got a little too into it the past few days,” he smiles.

While his vocal cords were still intact earlier in the day, Wilson cap-tained Rideau to a gold medal in the U19 mixed war canoe race – one of the club’s six medals in the 15-pad-dler discipline that counts for nearly twice as many burgee points as the one, two and four-paddler races.

War canoe also holds special sig-nificance for Farquharson, who cap-tained two of the big boats. Nephew

Reid paddled in two war canoes and captained two others, while daughter Cheyenne and son Lochlen competed in them as well.

“For a lot of athletes, even if you’re an Olympic champion, the first race of your life is a war canoe,” he notes, “and often the last race of your paddling life is a war canoe. It all starts here.”

ANGUS GOLDEN ON HOME WATER

Rideau’s athletes at the top end of the pyramid also got to celebrate triumphs on their home course. Rio 2016 Olympic candidates Ben Tar-dioli and Angus Mortimer powered Rideau to 3rd place in the senior men’s standings.

A poor result in his heat left Mor-timer in Lane 9 for the final of the K-1 1000-metre race. No matter – the 29-year-old covered the distance four seconds faster than anyone else.

HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 4, #11 September 2015

By Brendan Shaughnessy

photo: steve kingsman

FORCE GO FROM WORST TO 1ST

P. 11

P. 6

Jason Dunkerley and guide Josh Karanja won 2 of Ottawa’s dozen-plus medals at the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games.

Relegated in first OYSL apperance and denied promotion the next year, OSU U17 boys return to win 2015 east division.

BEAVER BOXER EYES OLYMPICS

P. 7She never fancied herself an Olympian in her youth or even earlier this year, but Erica Adjei is now gunning for the Games.

Bringing home the burgee

Beijing 2008 Olympian Angus Mortimer won the K-1 men’s 1,000 m on his home course at Mooney’s Bay as the Rideau Canoe won the burgee awarded to the top club as they hosted the 2015 Canadian Sprint Canoe-Kayak Championships.

National Championships-host Rideau Canoe Club wins first Canadian crown since 2002 at home

CANOE-KAYAK continues on p.4

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Ottawa Lions 800-metre runner Melissa Bishop followed up her up-set Pan Am Games gold medal with an even bigger silver medal victory at the Aug. 22-30 IAAF World Ath-letics Championships in Beijing.

The 26-year-old put her race smarts and fitness on full display in running tactically perfect heats (in-cluding her massive Canadian re-cord time of 1:57.52 in the semi-fi-nals), and staying patient to find her lane to the front in the final to take 2nd place globally in 1:58.12.

At the London 2012 Olympics and 2013 World Championships, Bishop did not reach the final, and in her first major international final last summer at the Glasgow 2014 Com-monwealth Games, she spent most of the race running farther in lane 2 before getting bounced back in-side and boxed in, to finish last. The competitor on display at this year’s Pan Ams and worlds was a more seasoned racer, and she had excep-tionally speedy wheels to match.

“You have to learn how to go through these rounds. In 2012 and 2013, I was still an immature ath-lete in the sense that I didn’t know how to get through them,” Bishop said in an Athletics Canada me-dia release, crediting her coach at the University of Windsor, Dennis Fairall for perfectly predicting how each race would unfold. “You live and you learn, and now I have the silver medal around my neck.”

GALE JOINS RECORD BOOKSThe Lions had another (much

younger) national record breaker in August as well. Lauren Gale, 15, set a Royal Canadian Legion Youth Championships record in the under-16 girls’ 200 m (in 24.32 seconds), while also winning gold in the U16 girls’ 300 m, silver in U16 girls’ 200 m hurdles and bronze in the U18 girls’ 4x400 m at the Aug. 7-9 meet in Ste-Thérèse, Que.

3 MORE LIONS AT WORLDS

After strong seasons overall, Lions Tim Nedow and Sultana Frizell experienced a letdown to finish their throwing seasons, both missing the final rounds of the men’s shotput and women’s ham-mer throw at the IAAF worlds, recording distances well off their season and personal-bests to finish 20th and 13th respectively.

Lions hurdler Sekou Kaba ad-vanced through one round of the men’s 110 m hurdles at the worlds, but then finished 7th in his semi-fi-nal. The 24-year-old is eager to re-solve a rather positive problem.

“I didn’t just hit the hurdles, I ran through all of them. I got out extremely well, surprised myself, which is why I couldn’t keep up,” the University of Ottawa and Sir Robert Borden High School grad explained to Athletics Canada.

ELITE


Surprise no more

ATHLETICS continues on p.4

Cristy Nurse had slightly bigger dreams for the Aug. 30-Sept. 6 World Rowing Championships in France, but there was no way the Ottawa Row-ing Club athlete would dare complain about her women’s eight team’s bronze medal and freshly-punched tickets to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

“I was part of the eight that quali-fied (for the 2012 Olympics) in 2011, but this qualifier felt like a completely different experience,” indicates Nurse, who also qualified a Canadian boat for

Rio with her 6th-place performance in the women’s pair. “The competition in the women’s eight field has become so much tighter over the past few years, so it was much more intense and nerve-racking this time around.

“Watching how many Olympic and world medallists were finding themselves outside qualification spots definitely made me truly appreciate how special it is to even put your boat in a position to compete next sum-mer.”

The Canadian women won their first heat to move directly to the final

and then secured one of five available Olympic berths, placing 3rd in 6:09.05 – just under four seconds shy of the 1st-place United States.

“Going into worlds, our goal was to displace the U.S. as the perennial winners of the women’s eight event, so of course we are disappoin-ted not to have achieved that aim,” says the 28-year-old University of Ottawa law school grad who worked on Parliament Hill before mov-ing to London, Ont. to join the national women’s rowing team training centre.

“With that being said, I am very proud of our ef-fort,” she adds. “We found ourselves down after 500 metres – a position we haven’t been in many times over the past few years. Everyone pulled together to get the boat back into podium position, so I can’t be disap-pointed about that.”

1 OF 2 CANADIAN BRONZE

It wasn’t a spectacular World Championships for the Canadian rowing team as a whole. Canada’s #3 all-time medal-producing Olympic sport (just behind swimming and athletics) got only one other worlds bronze aside from the women’s eight to finish 18th out of 23 com-peting countries in the medal count.

That made her crew’s medal shine a bit brighter in their eyes, notes Nurse, who took great pride in contributing to one of the medal wins, and simply competing for Canada against the best in the world.

“Representing Canada as an athlete has always been a dream of mine, and rowing has let me fulfill that ambition,” highlights Nurse, who contin-ues to register as an Ottawa athlete each year to recognize the ongoing encouragement she receives from both her

former coaches and teammates. “In a sport like rowing, in which Canada has such a long tradition of success, getting to wear the maple leaf is especially meaningful.”

The World Championships are the last major event of 2015 for the na-tional team, but Nurse will be back to full-time training before the end of the month.

“Although we’ve qualified two (women’s) boats, no individual ath-lete has secured a seat in those boats,” underlines Nurse, who was part of Canada’s 2011 worlds eight crew but got injured in the lead-up to the London 2012 Olympics and was an alternate come Games time. “So the winter will be about improving as an individual

and as a squad.”

TOUGH BLOW FOR GOODFELLOW

While Nurse experienced the thrill of Olympic qualification, fellow ORC rower Kate Goodfellow was dealt the opposite fate at the rowing worlds.

The Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games quadruple sculls gold medallist lined up in the double sculls competition with Antje von Seydlitz-Kurzbach (since women’s quad is not an Olympic event), but missed out on a place in the top-tier semi-final round when they fin-ished .73 seconds behind a French boat to place 3rd in their repechage heat en route to 22nd place overall. Goodfel-low did not return Sportspage e-mail requests for an interview.

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The 2015 soccer season is winding down for most, but for players aspiring to play compet-itively with the Nepean Hot-spurs Soccer Club, the fall and

winter is when they gear up for the birth of a new soccer cycle.

“It’s not a secret to the top players that the hard work they put in during winter makes all the difference come the next summer,” un-derlines Hotspurs Club Head Coach Boris Bajagic. “Wintertime isn’t so much about just staying fit, it’s a crucial time for players’ indi-vidual skill development.”

The road begins with tryouts starting on Sept. 19 and continuing into October for the Hotspurs competitive teams, and leads into winter programming.

The U13 through U18 levels take part in the indoor Coliseum League, while the U9/U10 and U11/U12 age groups will participate in a 7v7 Winter Development League, ensur-ing maximum opportunities for all players to touch the ball frequently and improve skills.

The Hotspurs’ Top Gun program provides additional training time for the most serious players training to play at the highest levels.

HOTSPURS OFFER ‘A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF AN OPDL PLAYER’

The Hotspurs U13 and U14 boys’ and girls’ Ontario Player Development League teams continue play in the new provincial high-per-formance loop through to November, how-ever the 2016 season isn’t far off either.

The later finish to the season provides a unique opportunity for prospective future players to get a first-hand view of the OPDL following the conclusion of their current teams’ seasons. The Hotspurs have created a low-cost initiative called “A week in the life of an OPDL player” where players from other teams and clubs take part in OPDL training sessions, be paired with a current OPDL player and learn what they experience on a weekly basis, attend an OPDL game, and receive a Hotspurs training t-shirt.

Trial assessments for players new to the OPDL will then run from Oct. 3-18.

“This is a really great chance for players to get a taste of what the OPDL is about,” sig-nals Bajagic, who was part of the committee that created the framework for the revolution-ary league. “We’re very happy to welcome players who are interested in pursuing the sport at the highest level to see what the OPDL and the Hotspurs have to offer.”

Nepean’s OPDL licence was recently renewed for 2016 and 2017, making it one of the few clubs that provide access to the only pathway for elite soccer in Ontario.

“We are very excited to continue providing the best possible outlet for top players to develop,” indicates Hotspurs Club President David Holder. “We been strong supporters of the OPDL since the start and we are working hard to keep on improving our program.”

With four National B-licenced coaches, two Provincial B, Bajagic’s National A and a slew more Pre-B and other coaches working their way up in certifications, the Hotspurs boast one of the most experienced, motivated and highly-qualified coaching staffs in the coun-try. Much of that talent has been brewed in-house, Holder notes, which means those long-serving Nepean coaches have them-selves received instruction from strong lead-ership and work well as a team to implement the club’s philosophy, and are familiar with how soccer operates in Ontario.

“For years, we’ve invested a lot of time, money and energy into coaching develop-ment, and that certainly put us in a leading position compared to other clubs to meet the high demands of the new league,” notes Holder, the long-time leader of the club foun-ded in 1970. “Our coaching and technical expertise has long been a point of pride for our club, and that ensures that our players are also given the best opportunity to excel in their soccer development.”

Nepean Hotspurs HotstoveTop-notch coaching spurs on Nepean players in winter programs

Rower qualifies boat for Rio with world bronzeBy Mat LaBranche

ELITE

photo: katie steenman images / rowing canada aviron

Cristy Nurse.

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CANOE-KAYAK cont’d from p.1

Tardioli, meanwhile, earned a sil-ver medal from the back of a war ca-noe, captaining Rideau’s mixed U17 boat to 2nd place and repeating the performance two hours later with the junior men’s war canoe to pick up an-other silver. The 25-year-old won two more silvers on his own (C-1 senior men’s 200 and 500 metres), as well as a bronze alongside Stephen Frodsham in the C-2 200 m.

A world junior bronze medallist in 2013, Madeline Schmidt was another big contributor for the hosts, earning seven medals from her eight races.

The smaller west-end Ottawa River Canoe Club continued to rise onto the elite national stage with its all-time best medal total of six.

“The future is bright, I am looking forward to it,” Kaba added. “I got out way faster than I am typically used to, hence the hurdle clipping. That’s my third or fourth fast-est time all-time. It has been an awesome experience. Every heat, every competitor, is a threat. Now I need to learn to manage speed that I haven’t been used to.”

MANY MEDALS ON TRACK

Lions Pan Am Junior Championships competitors Matt Bedard and Erinn Sten-man-Fahey helped Canada to relay bronze medals at the July 31-Aug. 2 event in Edmon-ton, while Stenman-Fahey and Lions high jumper Steve Nkusi narrowly missed the podium in

their individual competitions. Nkusi’s 2.10 m leap was one height away from the podium (Hans Lafleur of CANI Athlet-ics was 8th with 2.00 m), while Stenman-Fahey placed 4th in the 800 m final in 2:09.42.

Other local medallists from the Legion youth na-tionals included Lions Keira Christie-Galloway (gold, 100 m hurdles), Shona McCulloch (2 gold, 1,500 & 3,000 m), Shyvonne Roxborough (gold, 100 m), Sharelle Samuel (sil-ver, 300 m), Taylor Currier (silver, hammer throw), Austin White (bronze, 400 m hurdles), Cashman Ford (bronze, pole vault), Colle Thompson and Caitlin Fischer with Gale and Samuel (bronze, 4x400 m), and CANI’s Japhet Divita (2 silver, long & triple jump).

—Dan Plouffe

continued from p.2

ATHLETICS: Big youth nats hardware haul

Bolstered by the return of National Lacrosse League stars Callum Crawford and Caleb Wiles to their hometown team, the Capital Region Axemen made it all the way to the final of the Canadian Lacrosse Na-tional Championships on Sept. 5 in St. Catharines.Following 15-10 and 11-10 victories over Snake Island and St. Cath-

arines, the Axemen were locked in an 11-11 tie with under 7 minutes to play in the championship game before the Ontario-champion Six Na-tions Rivermen scored three in a row to claim the national senior ‘B’ title.The Axemen were dominant in Quebec Senior Lacrosse League

play this summer, going 13-2 in the regular season and sweeping the Kahnawake Mohawks in the championship series to earn the first league title in the franchise’s third season of operation.After playing just 5 regular season games for the Axemen, 2-time NLL

top-5 scorer Crawford led the tournament with 8 goals and 11 assists in the three nationals contests. Gloucester Griffins product Tim Ber-gin was the Quebec season scoring champion with 84 points in his 12 games of action.At the Aug. 2-8 Peewee Boys Lacrosse Championship of Canada,

Nepean Knights players Mat Clavet and Willem Firth helped Ontario carry on its tradition of dominance at the event, blasting each opponent by a minimum of 6 goals in their 8 matches to win the national crown.

Axemen 1 win short of title

photo: dean joncas

COMMUNITY CLUBS

photo provided

With titles in the U17 men’s, masters combined and U19 and jr. women’s cat-egories, Rideau was awarded the big burgee as 2015 national club champions.

Callum Crawford.

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ottawa.ca/recreation

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Starting soon: • Badminton • Basketball • Cross-Country Skiing • Curling • Hockey• Soccer• Squash• Tennis • Volleyball

Break a sweat on the volleyball court, go one-on-one in badminton, or shoot some basketball hoops! The City offers lots of great fall sports programs to bring play back into your life.

Minto Recreation Complex–BarrhavenThis new state-of-the-art facility features a gymnas-

ium, two ice rinks, a lap and leisure pool, and an arti-ficial turf sports field. With a focus on Active Start and our FUNdamental sport skill development programs, there is something for everyone.

Ladies, why not join the pick-up hockey program? Need to brush up on your skills? Register for a hockey development or power skate class.

Moms and daughters can volley together in the Monday night Volleyball Duet class, or join your partner for an evening of adult recreational co-ed volleyball.

Teen Thursday’s provide opportunities for a game of Ultimate on the artificial turf.

Have questions? Email [email protected] or call 613-727-2683.

Richcraft Recreation Complex–KanataLocated in Kanata North, this energy efficient,

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minton and can be played on any hard surface using wood paddle racquets and a plastic baseball with holes. Try it out Monday to Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at the Richcraft Recreation Complex- Kanata, and Thursday and Saturday at the Minto Recreation Complex-Barrhaven. The game is as fun as its name! Beginners welcome.

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Visit ottawa.ca/recreation to find a location near you.

Bring back play this fall

What a difference a day makes.

On a mid-August Saturday, East Nepean Eagles players rushed the mound after their game. They met in a mess of hugs, shouts and water bottle showers to celebrate a break-through win against rival High Park and a spot in the Canadian Little League Championships final on their home field at Ken Ross Park in Barrhaven.

The 11- and 12-year-old Eagles got there thanks to a clutch performance in the de-cisive stages against their foes from Toronto, who they hadn’t beaten in four years.

With left-hander Ben Adams’ stellar pitching and Jake Calder’s two-RBI double, the Eagles entered the bottom of the 6th inning with a 2-1 lead. After Adams reached his 85-pitch limit, Michael Stremlaw took the mound for the Eagles. Two of his first pitches reached the backstop, allowing the tying run to quickly reach third base.

But if Stremlaw was at all rattled, he did not show it. With the guts and poise of a major leaguer, he closed the game with a pair of strikeouts.

“We knew we were going to be tested,” indicated Eagles coach Mark Keeping, whose team had reached the semi-fi-nals thanks to five previous round robin victories over every entry besides Ontario champion High Park. “But two strikeouts in a pressure situation, that was unbelievable. Tomorrow, we just want to put in the same ef-fort, and see where that gets us.”

Twenty-four hours later, the Eagles again came together after the game. This time, though, they were silent. They all took a knee and listened to coach Keeping in the outfield – far

away from the White Rock All-Stars, who had earned an infield celebration of their own.

The B.C. team thoroughly trounced the Eagles to win the title, despite a 6-5 defeat to East Nepean earlier in the tourna-ment. The mercy rule was ap-plied after the 5th inning, with White Rock up 16-0 (Little League rules dictate that games be stopped if one team is ahead 10 runs or more after four in-nings).

With the tournament win, White Rock earned a trip to Williamsport, PA to represent Canada in the Little League World Series.

B.C. pitcher Matthew Wilkinson was dominant in a

complete-game, shutout per-formance where he allowed only a sacrifice bunt. Thirteen of the 15 outs recorded by White Rock were Wilkinson strikeouts.

“Yesterday, we were on our game,” highlighted Jay-den Oliver, one of the defeated Eagles. “But today B.C. was ready to play because we beat them in the round robin.”

All things considered, Oliver said he cherished the ex-perience of competing in the big tournament in front of a large home crowd.

“They’ll be good memor-ies because we played great in the round robin,” he explained. “Even though we lost in the last game, we played great overall.”

‘Good memories’ for runner-up host EaglesBy Brendan Shaughnessy

photo: brendan shaughnessy

COMMUNITY CLUBS

The East Nepean Eagles celebrate their 2-1 national semi-final win.

6 JUNIOR LEAGUES

If you look at this year’s Ontario Youth Soccer League under-17 boys’ east division standings, you’d see a team at the top that was totally dominant – un-defeated with 11 wins and 2 ties, and 17 more goals scored than anyone else.

But if you look back at that same team’s record the past three seasons, you’d be asking: where the heck did these guys come from?

“At the start of the sea-son, no one expected us to be there,” underlines Jeremy Aweya, whose Ottawa South United Force team clinched their division crown with a 3-1 road win over Bramp-ton East on Sept. 5. “We came in as underdogs and that’s what really made me happy – we proved every-one wrong.”

Back up three years – when this OSU group com-peted in the OYSL for the first time at the U14 level – and the ending wasn’t nearly as pretty. The Force

finished 25 points back of the champs and were releg-ated from the top provincial league.

“Going into the OYSL was a whole new experi-ence,” recalls Quincy Meh, one of a half-dozen team members who began play-ing together in U11 at OSU. “We didn’t imagine it would be that hard at that age.”

Next year, the group was dealt an even bigger dose of reality in the regional league when they failed to earn pro-motion back into the OYSL.

“Honestly, we thought it was a given that we’d go back up right away, so it was kind of a shock to us when we didn’t. We were pretty devastated. Lots of negative vibes around the team, and a few people left. It wasn’t going well,” recounts Eric Fullerton, now the team’s captain. “To be division champs and sitting where we are right now, ranked #1 in Ontario, it’s pretty surreal.”

Under new coach Gord MacGregor, the Force won East Region League and

Cup titles last season to set the stage for their 2015 rise up the OYSL ranks.

MacGregor feels that the rough road the team traveled wound up serving them well.

“That might be one of the biggest keys to success,” reflects the long-time OSU coach and former player. “Guys know that they have

to work to get the victor-ies. We don’t go into games thinking we’re going to win, we go in thinking we’ve got to work to get the W.

“We had a lot of close games. We have the wins, but they’ve been hard wins, and the guys have had to play really well together.

“And I can’t remember a team that’s played more games in 35 or 40-degree weather. It’s been tough, but they all showed a lot of character.”

Team depth was another major reason for success, adds MacGregor, whose

team thrived on strong counterattacks and ball movement.

“A lot of teams have their top players and then have some others that just help out. We really are a team of 18,” MacGregor emphasizes. “We have 18 guys who can play, and play different positions. Every-one has really contributed.”

Another key component in the 1998-born boys’ suc-cess was that OSU had an OYSL entry one age group up last season.

OYSL east champs ‘proved everyone wrong’By Dan Plouffe

file photo

Jeremy Aweya.

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Another OSU team will also be playing for an Ontario Cup title this month. Thanks to a 1-0 semi-final victory over Vaughan, the Force U15 boys advanced to the Cup final against North Mississauga on Sept. 20.

The Cumberland Cobras U13 girls reached the semi-finals before bowing out 2-1 to North Mississauga, while the OSU U15 girls’ run also stopped in the semis with a 3-0 loss to North London.

The OSU U16 girls capped a sparkling 10-3-1 season with a 3-game winning streak to rise into 1st place in the east division. The Force have a 2-point edge over 2nd-place King City, but will be holding their breath for King City’s final game, hoping their oppon-ents from Whitby can produce a win or a tie.

Force striker Clarissa Larisey won’t be on pins and needles at all when it comes to the U16 girls’ scoring title. With 23, she has 13 goals more than the #3 player in the race from King City, while OSU teammate Chloe Doherty sits 2nd-best with 12 markers.

Jonathan David of the Gloucester Hor-nets carries an even more commanding scor-ing race lead into his final OYSL game of the season in U15 boys’ play. His 31 goals are 18 ahead of everyone else.

David and Gloucester teammate Ben-son Fazili made their first appearances for Canada in international competition in Au-gust, helping the national men’s U15 team to victories over Qatar, Bermuda and Panama along with a defeat to Mexico in a five na-tions tournament Aug. 5-9 in Mexico City.

The 14-1 Hornets ran away with the east division long ago, and will also be shooting for a league-wide championship on Oct. 3-4.

Three Ottawa-bred players were amongst the Montreal Impact’s recent signees to their USL squad. Nevello Yoseke, Alexandar Kulic and Abdou Samake are now part of the Major League Soccer pro club’s reserves side, join-ing fellow Ottawa products Yann-Alexandre Fillion and Zachary Sukunda.

SOCCER CHAMPS’ CIRCLE

OYSL continues on p.10

7ELITE

Erica Adjei didn’t care much for sports when she was younger. But on her 18th birthday, it all changed when a friend made a comment that would be a turning point in her life.

“One of my friends had a registra-tion form to the Beaver Boxing Club. I said we should all do it together. And one of my other friends said that I couldn’t box because I was a girl. He said I would quit even if I started box-ing,” recounts Adjei. “What he said sparked something in me. I took it as a challenge. And a couple of months later I walked into the gym and that’s how it all started.”

Eight years later, Adjei is now the reigning Canadian women’s cham-pion in the 54 kg division, and as of August’s Ringside world champion-ships, she’s now got a major interna-tional title to her name as well.

Billed as the planet’s largest ama-teur boxing competition, the Ringside worlds are an event run by a box-ing apparel manufacturer featuring around 1,500 competitors across all divisions.

Adjei beat opponents from Kan-sas, Toronto and Vancouver to win the women’s under-120 lbs. division at the four-day event in Missouri.

“I was on cloud nine,” smiles the Montreal-born, Ottawa-raised boxer. “All the hard work in the gym, all the dieting, all the sacrifices I endured were worth it.”

Adjei has produced plenty of great results in recent years – twice selected as the city’s top boxer at the Ottawa Sports Awards, and also re-ceiving Boxing Ontario’s 2014 senior

female athlete of the year honour. But it was watching from the audience that sparked the 2012 Carleton Uni-versity grad’s Olympic dreams.

“I was a spectator at the boxing

finals at the (Toronto 2015) Pan Am Games and it was an amazing exper-ience,” identifies Adjei, who’s now preparing for an early-October com-petition in Russia. “Before that, I had no ambitions to go to the Olympics or the Pan Am Games, but after being at the final ceremonies when they raised the flag and awarded the medals, and to hear the athletes’ national an-thems... It gave me goosebumps.

“I decided that I wanted to be (in that position) and reach that pin-nacle.”

Still a young Olympic sport, wo-men’s boxing does not currently in-clude Adjei’s 54 kg weight class at the Pan Am or Olympic Games, so she would have to move up to 60 kg or down to 51 to take a shot at the big stage.

Based on the 5 years he’s worked with Adjei, Beaver coach Greg Gayle – who Adjei credits for much of her success – doesn’t doubt his athlete could make it happen.

“She is the best boxer at the gym. She is a confident fighter and has great speed. She is a terrific and wonder-ful person and never has a bad thing to say about anyone. She is a very humble person in a very demanding sport,” Gayle details. “She can go as far as she wants. It’s all up to her.”

Int’l title & Pan Am spectacle fuel boxer’s Olympic dreamBy Brian Trota Erica Adjei.


8

Bytown Storm triathletes book tickets to Ontario Summer Games at home eventBy Brendan Shaughnessy

COMMUNITY CLUBS

“You gotta check out the stairs.”

So says Hassan Eljaji, a volunteer and grillmaster at the Dunrobin Kids of Steel Triath-lon. The stairs in question lead from the Ottawa River to the Bonnenfant YMCA.

It is not so much the quant-ity of stairs that makes this the most gruelling part of the event – the second-last leg of Triathlon Ontario’s Youth Cup series. Rather, it is the vast (and varying) distance between the wooden steps, which prevents competitors from developing any sort of rhythm as they scale the seemingly endless hill from the water to their bicycles.

Greg Kealey, founder of the Bytown Storm triathlon club, has heard others call it the toughest swim-to-bike trans-ition in the province.

While the stairs provided the stiffest of tests to the 155 competing triathletes, they also served as an example of the Bytown Storm philosophy.

Consider Emma Lazenby, a triathlete from London who won the girls’ 12 and 13-year-old division. Lazenby said she went “all-out” once she got out of the water.

To Suehayla Eljaji (Has-san’s daughter) and her Storm teammates in the 14 and 15-year-old group, however, the idea of attacking the stairs full-bore was laughable.

“We go up steady, so by the time we get to our bikes, our breath is back to normal,” she explained.

“Most clubs focus on speed,” Suehayla continued. “But right now we’re focused on form.”

Eljaji and fellow Storm triathlete Hannah Hall did

well enough to qualify for next year’s Ontario Summer Games, alongside teammates Rachel Cameron, Haileigh Chenier and Saoirse Kealey (Greg’s daughter), who quali-fied in prior races.

However, none of the four Storm triathletes in the race (Saoirse missed the event) came within 8 minutes of a podium finish. In all, the local triathlon club had a modest 5 podium fin-ishes across the 14 categories in Dunrobin.

No matter, indicated the elder Kealey. He feels results are beside the point for such young athletes.

“We tell them, ‘Develop the skillsets.’” he underlined. “‘You might not be winning now, but in five years, when you’re older and it counts more, you’ll prob-ably be doing a lot better.’”

To that end, Kealey said

those athletes headed to the Ontario Summer Games will do more speed work as they prepare. Next year, Eljaji and her friends will be part of the 16-and-over National Junior Series.

“From there,” Kealey noted, “either you’re going to be an international-level ath-lete or you’re not. We start giv-ing them the message: it gets serious.”

To reach its highest levels, the sport requires long-term commitment, Kealey added, estimating that triathletes do not truly peak until their late 20s or early 20s, unless they get side-tracked by injuries or burnout.

It can be a gruelling, uneven path to the top, he explained – reminiscent of a certain hill in Dunrobin – which is why the Bytown Storm’s triathletes are taking their time.

Elise Bolger (above) spent time with the Bytown Storm triathlon club prior to the Ontario Youth Cup series event in Dunrobin. Bolger was the silver medallist in the women’s U23 race – one place ahead of the Storm’s Meagan Adams.


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9

Ottawa’s Christine Robbins earned a silver medal in the PT5 women’s para-triathlon event at an ITU World Triathlon Series event on Sept. 5 in Edmonton. The 37-year-old will compete in the Sept. 15-20 WTS Grand Final (world championships) in Chicago, as will Carp triathlete Joanna Brown, set to line up in the women’s under-23 event.

2 LOCAL TRIATHLETES SET TO LINE UP FOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

A pair of local ice dance pairs earned solid results representing Canada in August ISU Junior Grand Prix competitions. Audrey Croteau-Villeneuve and Jeff Hough of the Minto Skating Club placed 6th at their event in Slovakia, while Kanata sib-lings Melinda and Andrew Meng scored a new international personal-best score of 130.51 points to finish 5th at their competition in Latvia.

LOCAL ICE DANCE TEAMS IMPRESS ON JR GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT

OSU Force Academy ZoneOSU alum Samake signs first pro deal with Montreal Impact

Abdou Samake be-came the latest Ottawa South United alum to sign a pro contract

last month, moving up the ranks with the Montreal Impact onto the club’s USL side.

The 18-year-old defender is now training with FC Montreal – the reserve team for the Impact’s Major League Soccer franchise.

“This is a really good confirmation that I’ve been working hard and I’m going in the right direction,” says Samake, adding he was doubly happy to make it as a pro with the club that first brought him into its youth academy. “I’m looking forward to working hard with them. But of course I know that this is not the end result. There’s still the MLS that I want to reach.”

Samake left for Montreal and the Impact’s U16 academy in 2013. The former Louis-Riel high school student now finds himself with a pro soccer side two years later, although “the road is not easy at all,” he notes, with moving away from home, and balancing a demand-ing training schedule with school.

“There are a lot of ups and downs – mo-ments when you doubt yourself and moments when you feel confident,” Samake indicates. “The key is managing those moments. There were times where I thought ‘maybe this isn’t for me.’ It’s really important to trust your dream and trust yourself. At the end know I need to keep my head high and work hard.That has been the winning strategy for me.”

Samake, who came to Canada from Mali in northeast Africa at age 7, played his last two seasons in Ottawa with OSU before joining the Impact and helping their U16 and U18 groups reach the USSDA semi-finals in back-to-back seasons. He says OSU helped him bridge the gap between club soccer and moving into a professional environment.

“My time with OSU was incredible,” Sa-make underlines, highlighting the contribu-tions of General Manager Jim Lianos, Head Coach Paul Harris and Force Academy Staff Coach Russell Shaw. “They made that gap so close that when I came here I already had almost everything that was required to play at this level. With all of the tools they gave me, I was able to come here and shine

and get a pro contract out of it. I am very grateful for that.”

LATEST OSU PRO PRODUCTSamake’s pro signing comes on the heels

of fellow OSU alum Kris Twardek joining Millwall FC in London, UK, several university grads making their way into the pro game in Europe, and a number of other recent OSU products joining youth academy teams with Canada’s MLS franchises.

Zoom Langwa was the latest OSU player to move into the academy ranks, joining sev-eral other Ottawa natives already part of the Vancouver Whitecaps organization, including Hayden Simmonds-O’Grady, Theo Bair, Ben-son Fazili and OSU alumni Dario Conte and Vana Markarian – who was recently selected for Canada’s U-20 national team program.

“We are very pleased to see so many of our players moving on,” says OSU Club Head Coach Paul Harris. “It’s very encouraging for us to see that it’s not just one player who’s made it maybe by fluke. To have so many def-initely reinforces the work we’ve put into de-veloping our programs, ensuring our players get to showcase their skills and get noticed, cultivating our relationships with next-level teams and providing them with great talent.”

WHITECAPS EVENT COMINGOrganized alongside OSU, Vancouver

Whitecaps head of residency recruitment Frank Ciacca will be in town for a Sept. 24-27 talent ID event. See osu.ca for more details.

GGs UNBEATEN IN SOCCER, FOOTBALL & RUGBY TO START CIS SPORTS SEASON

OTTAWA CYCLIST TOP CANADIAN AT TOUR OF ALBERTA, SIGNS WITH TEAM THAT RIDES TOUR DE FRANCEOttawa’s Mike Woods of Optum Pro Cycling earned a top-10 result in the general classification of the Sept. 2-7 Tour of Alberta and finished as the top Canadian, ahead of Ryder Hesjedal. Woods was coming off a stage win that had him wearing the leader’s yellow jersey for the first time in his career at the Aug. 3-9 Tour of Utah, finishing 2nd overall come the conclusion of the tour. The 28-year-old former Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club middle distance runner also recently signed with Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycling, a World Tour team that competes in Tour de France, for next season. Ottawa’s Matteo Dal-Cin and Alex Cataford of Silber Pro Cycling

placed 87th and 48th overall respectively at the Tour of Alberta. Ottawa’s Connor Byway placed 5th in the men’s points race and 8th in the team pursuit at the Aug. 19-23 UCI World Junior Track Cycling Championships in Kazakhstan, while Katherine Maine was 11th in the women’s omnium and 19th in the 500 m time trial.

GROUP RHYTHMIC GYMNAST HITS NEW PB BEFORE OLYMPIC QUALIFIERKanata Rhythmic Gymnastics Club product Lucinda Nowell and the Canadian group rhythmic gymnastics team achieved new personal best scores in both of their events at the Aug. 15-16 World Cup event in Bulgaria to place 14th in the qualification round. The team also competed at World Cups in Russia and Hungary in advance of the Sept. 7-13 World Championships in Germany, where they’ll have a chance to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

The defending Quebec conference-champion University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s rugby team blasted out of the gates with an 87-0 victory over Sherbrooke on Labour Day. Quarterback Derek Wendel threw for 384 yards and 3 touchdowns in his Gee-Gees’ sea-son-opening victory over Queen’s to kick off their Canadian Interuniversity Sport football campaign at home on Sept. 6. Julia Francki has scored a goal in each game as her Gee-Gees women’s soccer team drew Queen’s 1-1, beat Nipissing 1-0 and creamed Laurentian 5-1 to start their season. With a 34-24 loss to Queen’s and 57-0 pounding of Waterloo thus far, the Carleton Ravens football team is 1-1,

while the Carleton men’s soccer team is 2-1-1 and the Ravens rugby women are 0-1.

Grace St-Germain has been selected to play for Canada in her hometown as The Marshes Golf Club prepares to host the World Junior Girls Championship from Sept. 20-25. The 17-year-old helped Canada to a 3rd-place finish in the team event at last year’s inaugural girls’ world juniors.

ST-GERMAIN RETURNS TO GOLF WORLD JUNIORS AT HOME

After a 10-gold performance at her home provincials earlier this sum-mer, Nepean-Kanata Barracudas swimmer Mia Zahab collected another big medal haul at the July 29-Aug. 3 Canadian Age Group Swimming Championships in Quebec City. The 13-year-old won 3 bronze in the girls’ 14-and-under 400 m individual medley and 400 & 800 m freestyle, and helped NKB to a pair of gold in the 14U 4x200 m free relay and 4x100 m free relay – the latter in Ontario-record time. Also part of the team were Reagan MacDonald, Raeleigh Mooij and Amelia Nielsen – who also earned silver in 14U 200 & 400 m and bronze in 100 m free. NKB’s Janet Zhao and Montana Champagne of the Greater-Ottawa Kingfish were national champs in the girls’ age 16-18 200 m breaststroke and boys’ age 17-18 200 m fly respectively, while Alexandre Perreault of the Ottawa Swim Club was a triple-gold medallist in the 16-year-old boys’ 50 & 100 m butterfly and 100 m free.

NKB SWIMMER COLLECTS 6 NATIONAL MEDALS

TEAM HOMAN BLASTS OFF WITH PERFECT RECORD AT SEASON’S FIRST WCT EVENT

NIGHTHAWKS FIELD HOCKEY PLAYERS CHOSEN FOR JR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

OTTAWA SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTS

The Ottawa Curling Club rink of Lisa Weagle, Joanne Courtney, Emma Miskew and skip Rachel Homan got their 2015-16 season off to a perfect start with a 7-0 record and women’s title at the sea-son-opening World Curling Tour event in Oakville. Team Homan topped Switzerland’s Alina Paetz 5-4 in the final, and downed the likes of Russia’s Anna Sidorova, Edmonton’s Val Sweeting and Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni earlier in the competition.

Ottawa River Runners paddlers earned 7 podium performances at the 2015 Canadian Na-tional Whitewater Championships in Chilliwack, B.C. Pan Am Games silver medallist Cam Smedley won the men’s C-1 competition, followed by his brother, Liam Smedley, while Cam also teamed up with Ben Hayward to win the C-2 event. Alexandra McGee re-turned to the top of the Canadian women’s C-1 podium, while Lois Betteridge took bronze. Thea Froehlich and Mike Tayler were silver medallists in women’s and men’s K-1. Their season will wrap up with the Sept. 16-20 World Championships in London, UK.

3 NATIONAL TITLES, 7 MEDALS IN TOTAL FOR LOCAL WHITEWATER PADDLERS

Three Nepean Nighthawks players have been named to Field Hockey Canada’s 2015-2016 Men’s Junior Development Squad. Braedon Muldoon, Liam Manning and Rohan Chopra will be centralizing in Vancouver for training this fall. Team Canada will play in the Junior Pan American Championships in Toronto next June where they’ll

be after a top-2 finish to qualify for 2016 Junior World Cup of Hockey in India.

Kimana Mar won 5 gold and a silver and Christina Judd-Campbell won 4 gold and a silver in rhythmic gymnastics at the July 25-Aug. 2 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles, while Ottawa’s Meagan Michie captured a gold, a silver and 2 bronze in swimming, and Marianne Scharf scored a silver and a bronze in track-and-field.

BIG MEDAL HAUL FOR LOCALS AT SPECIAL OLYMPICS WORLD GAMES

Visit SportsOttawa.com to read more Ottawa Sportspage Snapshots.

10 EDITORIAL

Team of the Month: Myers Riders Junior Varsity Football TeamTeam Members: Danny Lukusa, Brayden Lassenba, Liam Paquette, Jameson Dominique, Carmine Urbani, Nana-Yaw Serbeh, Alex Strong, Romeo Rose, Honoreal Iloki, Cameron Bengough, Elijah Ifill, James Keenan, Owen Clement, Jaime Sebastian, Hayden Tripp, Benjamin Chombe, Osa Ekiyor, Jean-Paul Cimankinda, Liam Quinton, Anesu Latmore, Malik Yusuf, David Wardowski, Nicklas Sua, Angelo Vushaj, Tshiowa Bamuamba, AJ Oickle, Sebastian Chavez, Joseph Green, Benjamin Mailhiot, Blake Thompson, Harrison Cooney, Alejandro Politis, Abdirazak Ibrahim, Connor Williams, Daniel Mercier, Thabiso Bakelaar, Billy Denault, Connor Eng-land, Dakota Elliott, Laurent Filiatreault, Jesse Tamming, Ron Peters, Jelani White-Chiteta, Kyle Sonnenburg, Nick Sine, Chance Angeconeb, Michael Frangione, Patrick Lavoie, Vincenzo Frangione, Cameron Crofts, Eric Bento, Patrick Massia, Richard Burton, Avery Clayton, Guillaume Dufresne, Austin Noiles & Deng Malou.

About: A year after they were left out of the party when their Varsity and Bantam counterparts won league titles, the Myers Riders Junior Varsity team turned the tables and became the lone local Ontario Varsity Foot-ball League champions in 2015. To complete their perfect season (8-0 in regular season, 3-0 in playoffs), the JV Riders outlasted the Niagara Spears 45-42 to win the league final on Aug. 15 at University of Waterloo, while the Varsity Riders lost their championship game and the Cumberland Panthers fell in the Bantam fi-nal. Jean-Paul Cimankinda was the lead offensive force for the Riders, rumbling for 2,127 rushing yards in 8 regular season games.

Athlete of the Month: Myles CornwallSport: Soccer

Club: Ottawa South United Force

School/Grade: Grade 12 Sir Robert Borden HS

About: Myles Cornwall celebrated the second Ontario Youth Soccer League east division title of his career this season with the Ottawa South United Force U17 boys’ team. Cornwall scored in the clinching victory on Sept. 5 for his 10-0-2 team, which has yet to lose this season in pro-vincial league and Cup play. With 10 goals in 13 games, the striker sits amongst the top-5 in league scoring heading into the final game of the year. Cornwall now has a chance to win the prize that eluded him during his first division champi-onship-winning season in 2013 when his current team shoots for an Ontario Cup victory against fellow undefeated side Oakville on Sept. 13.

To nominate Stars of the Month, go to SportsOttawa.com and follow the link on the right-hand bar under the Stars of the Month feature. Courtesy of the Ottawa Sportspage and the YMCA-YWCA of the National Capital Region, the selected Stars of the Month will receive free one-week Family Passes to the Y.

YMCA-YMCA OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

STARS OF THE MONTH

OYSL continued from p.6

NEW Mailing address:345 Meadowbreeze Dr.

Kanata, Ont. K2M 0K3

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

Contact:Editor: Dan Plouffe

[email protected]

Two “underage” team members played full-time for that squad, and a number of the ’97 players got called up for games with the older squad on top of their regular regional matches last year.

“That was very helpful in my opinion,” indicates Aweya, who still has a shot at the league scoring title with a game left to play, just one goal behind leader with 12. “It got me ready for the physicality, the tempo and how fast the game play is.”

BIGGER PRIZES AHEAD

The Force have one title under their belts, but they have a shot at a lot more yet. They’ll face west division champ Oakville on OYSL champion-ship weekend Oct. 3-4 in Mississauga.

Thanks to their perfect run in the knockout-format Ontario Cup, the Force will also face Oakville – the lone other team with an unbeaten re-cord – on Sept. 13 in Vaughan for the right to represent Ontario at the Sport Chek National Club Championships Oct. 7-12 in Charlottetown, PEI.

The high school seniors are acutely aware that the opportunity ahead of them won’t be returning this time.

“It’s a big-time motivator. It’s the last year playing with these guys. Going really far has made it really special,” signals Meh, noting he’s thoroughly enjoyed bonding with teammates on road trips. “If we win Ontario Cup finals and go to nationals, that would be an even bigger dream than I could ask for in my last year.”

A day after a loss of the most deflating variety – their only defeat of the tournament – the Ottawa Rebels women’s ball hockey team came back out for the bronze medal match on Aug. 15 at the Ca-nadian Ball Hockey Asso-ciation National Champion-ships and finished up their home event with a victory at Walkley Arena.

“It wasn’t very difficult to focus them,” says John Struthers, the Rebels coach. “They wanted the bronze.”

That wasn’t the prize the Rebels initially wanted. Fol-lowing a 4-0-1 record in pre-liminary round play, Ottawa suffered an achingly close loss to Newfoundland to miss out on the gold medal game, which the Toronto Shamrocks won over Newfoundland.

The Rebels lost their semi-final in overtime while on a 4-on-3 disadvantage.

“Regardless of the refs and their calls, we didn’t finish the chances we had,” underlines Rebels player

Samantha Delenardo. “It’s a bummer. We thought this was our year.”

Delenardo and her team-mates put the semi-final game behind them and played bril-liantly the next morning, con-trolling their game against the Vanier Mooseheads to earn a 1-0 victory on the strength of an early Chelsea Grills goal. Offensive pressure from the likes of former University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s ice hockey players Fannie Desforges and Carol-Ann Upshall overpowered the smaller, younger team as-

sembled from the popular Ottawa-Vanier Women’s Ball Hockey League.

“We just love playing with each other so much that everything’s fun – win or lose,” indicates Delenardo, and one of many current or past Canadian Interuniversity Sport athletes on the team.

The former Gee-Gee adds that the ball hockey nationals “reminds me of CIS, in terms of the pump-up.”

Within two hours of coaching the Rebels, Struth-ers was behind the bench again for the Ottawa Blues

men’s team. The president of the Ottawa Blues Ball Hockey Association adult league had to stomach an-other tough defeat as his team lost their own game of the tournament.

The Blues fell 5-0 to the Toronto Wolfpak after a 2-0-2

round robin and a 3-2 semi-fi-nal win over Team West.

The event even attracted former NHLers Donald Bras-hear and Terry Ryan, who played for the men’s cham-pion Montreal and bronze medallist Newfoundland teams, respectively.

Rebels rebound for bronze at homeBy Brendan Shaughnessy


The nurses were all shocked at how strong (and uncooper-ative) her legs were, so Ottawa Sportspage editor (and new dad) Dan Plouffe and mom Cheryl are eager to see what sport their daughter may get into once she puts those limbs to more productive uses. Karina Isabelle Plouffe was born at 11:13 p.m. on August 9th, 2015 under the outstanding care of the team at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital. Game on!

Welcome Baby

Karina!

photo: proud pappa

The Ottawa Rebels lost their women’s semi-final game in overtime at the Ca-nadian Ball Hockey Association National Championships, but came back to win the bronze the next day.

11OTTAWA AT THE PARAPAN AM GAMES

Winning gold and hearing O Canada was a long time coming for Patrice Dagenais and the Canadian national wheelchair rugby team, who won their first major international title since the 2002 World Championships at 2015 Parapan Am Games Aug. 7-15 in Toronto.

“The last three or four big championships, we lost and got silver. It was nice to get gold instead of hearing another country’s national anthem,” signals Dagenais. “It’s not like the Paralympics, but still, to win and be able to beat the United States in front of our fans, all the emotion and singing O Canada, it was something I always dreamed of as a kid.”

Since joining the national team as a regular in 2011, the 30-year-old Embrun native has only experienced battles of the epic variety with his North American counterparts.

It had been eight years since Canada had beaten USA when Dagenais won a heart-stopping 50-49 semi-final game en route to a silver medal in his Paralympic debut at London 2012, and turned the trick again in the 2014 World Champi-onships semi-final, scoring with 2 seconds left to force overtime and then finishing the upset over the #1-ranked Americans.

“There’s a rivalry like a lot of sports with USA and Canada,” highlights Dagenais, a former junior hockey player who lost use of his legs and some upper-body functionality in a construction accident at age 18. “We knew we were the two strongest teams in the tournament. It’s always pretty even when we play each other.”

At the Parapans, no halftime leads were safe in the rivalry. In their preliminary round meeting, Canada led by 3 at the half, but USA came back

to force overtime and then win it 60-59.The Canadians were totally dominant in their

other matches against Brazil, Colombia, Argen-tina and Chile to setup rematch against the Amer-icans in the final.

This time, USA carried a considerable 30-26 lead at halftime, but Canada erased the deficit in the third period and went home with a 57-54 tri-umph.

“We lost (60-59) in double overtime in the round robin. We didn’t want to have that feeling again,” underlines Dagenais, whose roots in the sport came from the Ottawa Stingers team loc-ally. “It was an amazing feeling to be able to compete in front of family and friends and fans from Canada.”

With the Oct. 12-16 Wheelchair Rugby Chal-lenge in England on tap, there wasn’t a whole lot of time to revel in the victory before getting back to work.

“We had a couple weeks to celebrate, then we play in London with a chance to be the #1 seed (for the 2016 Paralympics),” notes Dagenais, named Team Canada co-captain earlier this year. “Then we have a few months to get ready for Rio.”

Dagenais scores gold in Parapan wheelchair rugby debutBy Alex Quevillon Patrice

Dagenais.

photo: dan galbraith / canadian paralympic committee

Canada fell to USA 41-23 in a men’s interna-tional rugby exhibition game on Aug. 22 at Twin Elm Rugby Park in Richmond (pictured above). There were no Ottawa players involved in the contest, however local products have excelled on a number of other rugby stages recently.Liam Kelly of the Bytown Blues (U18 men),

Emily Gray and Carolyn Williams of the Ottawa Ir-ish (U18 women), and Gabriel Casey and Shayne McCrindle of the Barrhaven Scottish along with Blues Alexander Hoerdt and Jacob Lowe (U16 men) all celebrated titles with Team Ontario at the inaugural Canada East Regional Champion-ships, held Aug. 1-3 in Montreal.The Ottawa Indians’ Myles Donoghue (U17 men),

Scottish player Emily Kyte (U16 women), and In-dian Brendan MacKenzie and William Hutchings of the Scottish (U15 men) also appeared for pro-vincial sides in a July 31-Aug. 2 Ontario vs B.C.

test series at Twin Elm.Led by University of Ottawa Gee-Gees coach Jen

Boyd, the national women’s U20 team featured Scottish player Alexandria Ellis for a Canada vs USA series on Aug. 19 and 22 near Seattle, while Asya Bartley of the Scottish was part of the dom-inant Ontario senior women’s team that won the Canada East rugby championship.Irish/Ashbury-brewed product Julianne Zuss-

man and Natasha Smith of the Scottish appeared for the Canadian women’s team in July Women’s Rugby Super Series matches against New Zeal-and, USA and England in Alberta.And one other local player has a big competi-

tion ahead, as Ottawa Irish and St. Peter Knights player Rachel McCallan will be part of Canada’s women’s rugby sevens team that will compete in the 2015 Youth Commonwealth Games from Sept. 9-11 in Samoa.


Ottawa racks up

rugby feats

Jason Dunkerley and guide Josh Karanja (left) employed a similar tactic in the T11 men’s 5,000 metres for ath-letes with no vision as they did at the London 2012 Para-lympics – hitting consistent lap times throughout and see if anyone can match them – and posted a Parapan Am re-cord time of 15:39.54 in soak-ing wet weather (less than 5 seconds off Dunkerley’s all-time best from London).

The Ottawa Lions pair crossed the finish line 2nd behind Odair Dos Santos, but were later upgraded to a gold medal when the Brazilian was disqualified for registering to run with two guides but only using one.

Dunkerley later took silver less than a half-second be-hind Dos Santos in the 1,500 m, finishing in 4:12.65.

Fellow Ottawa Lion Josh Cas-sidy (right) earned three silver medals in T54 men’s wheel-chair races, finishing no more than .51 seconds away from gold in each of the 800 m, 1,500 m and 5,000 m events.

The IPC Athletics World Championships will be Oct. 22-31 in Qatar.

uOttawa Gee-Gees swimmer Camille Bérubé (below) was also a triple-medalist at the Parapans with 2 bronze and a silver.

Sam Charron (left) didn’t land a medal at the Parapans, finish-ing 4th, but certainly made his presence felt in the 7-a-side soc-cer competition. The 17-year-old led Canada’s in scoring and tied for #2 in the tournament overall with 4 goals in 5 matches.

Takahashi Dojo’s Priscilla Gagne won silver in the women’s 52 kg judo competition, while Whitney Bogart and Amy Burk netted bronze with the Canadian women’s goalball team. Takahashi’s Tony Walby was 5th in the judo men’s 90 kg competition.

Transplanted Ottawa residents Adam Dukovich (from Lon-don, Ont.) and Nova Scotian Ian Kent each earned silver and bronze medals in boccia and table tennis respectively, while Ot-tawa-area sitting volleyball athletes Chantal Beauchesne, Anne Fergusson and Jolan Wong took bronze.

photo: matthew murnaghan / canadian paralympic committee

photo: matthew murnaghan / canadian paralympic committee

photo: matthew murnaghan / cpc photo: scott grant / canadian paralympic committee

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