ottawa sportspage

HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 2, #1 October 2012

HiSTOry & SmileS STOlen

OfSaa field HOCkey CHaSe On

#1 gee-geeS Seek CiS CrOwn

new HS fOOTball landSCape

p. 12

p. 2

p. 6

p. 3

For Alex Berhe, the 2012 high school cross-country season was his shot at redemption.

Running on his home course at OFSAA in Ottawa last year, the Woo-droffe Tigers athlete was a threat for the provincial podium, but finished a disappointing 18th place.

“I don’t know what was wrong with me,” Berhe reflects. “I just didn’t have my race on the day.”

He would have enjoyed another chance to prove himself this fall, but his school was one of many that did not enter teams due to a teachers’ la-bour conflict. But what Berhe laments even more is the possibility that he may lose an even bigger opportunity.

“It kind of brings my chances down of getting a scholarship, and for other schools to look at me,” notes the student who returned to Woodroffe this fall for a second year of Grade 12 in order to upgrade some of his credits to university pre-requisites. “When you run for your school, that’s when universities look at you and see who the good runners are.”

Berhe hopes he’ll still find his

way to an athletic scholarship through contacts with his Ottawa Lions track-and-field club, but not everyone has those options, he highlights.

“People who were relying on scholarships are kind of screwed,” explains Berhe, noting many seniors now have to take on jobs to save up for post-secondary studies. “It’s bad for people. You might not get schol-arships, which is what you’ve been working for all from Grade 9 up to your senior year.

“All of sudden, there’s no sports and you can’t really do nothing.”

The loss of high school sports is also a missed opportunity to build memories and friendships, Berhe adds. After moving to Ottawa from Ethiopia in 2004, Berhe says running helped him integrate into Canadian life. Win or lose, the bright 18-year-old would always hug his competitors – also close friends – from other local schools following races.

“Now I know more people,” Berhe underlines. “And if it wasn’t for running, right now I probably wouldn’t be focused on university.”

SpOrTS mOTiVaTing aCademiCS

Ali Mohsen, in Grade 12 at Rideau High School, is another stu-dent who went back for a “victory lap” and is now left without the pos-sibility of victory.

The Rams soccer team player lost the Tier 1 national capital champion-ship by a single goal last season, and was also one win away from a city title in his Grade 10 year.

“I’m really upset,” Mohsen em-phasizes. “We would have had a strong team.”

While he misses seeing game ac-tion, Mohsen is thankful he still has a club team to train with, although that’s not the case for majority of his teammates, who aren’t playing at all this year.

“A couple played club soccer, but most of them are new to the sport, or at least to organized soccer,” explains the Iraq-born student. “But we actu-ally worked pretty well as a team, we fit in good.”

Sports acted as a major tool for many of his teammates to get through high school, Mohsen adds.

“It keeps us away from trouble and all that stuff, you know?” he de-scribes. “If I miss a class, they tell me I can’t play, so it makes me go to class.

“It’s motivation for a lot of people. They come to school and they want to be something.”

After earning Ottawa’s first-ever OYSL division title, the OSU U14 girls were for- ced to replay a game they’d won earlier.

At least four teams have a real chance of representing the host national capital as-sociation at OFSAA girls’ field hockey.

Top-ranked in the country, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees want to taste gold at the CIS women’s soccer nationals.

The jr. league is gone, sr. ball has a new format & the St. FX Coyotes want to de-throne St. Peter in high school football.

(From left) Earl of March girls’ golf, Rideau sr. boys’ volleyball, Nepean girls’ basketball, Woodroffe boys’ soccer & Colonel By XC are some of the teams not entered this fall.

Crushed championship dreams, scholarships in jeopardy, unkindled friendships & lifetime memories lost for high school athletes caught in teacher labour strife

HS SPORTS continued on p.4

Locked Out

photo: dan plouffe

By Dan Plouffe & Anne Duggan

A national capital senior boys’ silver medalist last year, Alex Berhe is one of many high school athletes who saw their fall seasons shut down due to a labour dispute between English public school board teachers and the provincial goverment. The Grade 12 Woodroffe Tigers cross-country runner worries that his chances of obtaining a university athletic scholarship will be hurt since he won’t be able to prove himself at the OFSAA provincial championships.

file photos

Time TO STep up and COaCH iS nOw TO SaVe winTer SpOrTS TeamSA resolution to the teachers’ dispute seems unlikely prior to the Oct. 31 winter team entry deadline, so the time for parents and community volunteers to step up and coach a team is now. The OCDSB expects to have a centralized vo-lunteer processing system in place by Wednesday, Oct. 17, board staff says. The procedures to become a volunteer for extra-curricular activities include:1. Start by contacting school principal2. Developed in consultation with their school council, principals will have a list of activities where volun-teers are needed3. Principal will speak or meet with volunteer4. Volunteer to complete screening forms from OCDSB web site

5. Led by retired principals, board will review volunteer applications6. Volunteers to receive training in relevant policies and procedures7. Information provided about role and expectations for duties8. Approval from board9. Meet with principal again to re-view operational issues/procedures

2

It’s at least a four-horse race, with several others chasing closely, as local high school teams battle through league play for two available berths in the OFSAA girls’ field hockey championships, coming to the Nepean Sportsplex Nov. 1-3.

The big four that played in last year’s semi-finals, and have enjoyed the most success in recent years, are John McCrae, Merivale, Ashbury and Nepean, while Longfields-Davidson Heights, Glebe and Sir Robert Borden are making strides to enter the elite group.

Traditionally underdogs compared to McCrae and Merivale, it was the Nepean Knights and Ashbury Colts that scored trips to last year’s OFSAA championships, with the Knights reaching the quarter-final round.

“The kids are keen,” says Nepean coach Brian Lee, who is down six starters from last year’s city champi-onship team. “The experience of play-ing so many must-win games – we played seven in a row last year – was tremendous.”

The goal for the Knights this sea-son, adds the parent volunteer coach of several years, is to repeat as na-tional capital champs.

“We want to make it as far as pos-sible, and hopefully that’s OFSAA,” notes Kelly Walsh, who identifies team chemistry as a big reason for Nepean’s success. “We all get along. We all know each other really well, and when we have new players, we welcome them in right away in that first week.

“We love each other. There’s no drama and we try to keep a positive attitude.”

Walsh, a Grade 12 team captain, wished to highlight her coaches’ con-tributions, and thank them “for always doing everything they possibly could for us,” which included fighting to en-

sure Nepean would enter a team this year in spite of the teacher labour con-flict at public schools.

COlTS CraVe OfSaa reTurn

The Ashbury Colts have similar expectations as the Knights – they’ve had a taste of the provincial champi-onships, and they’d like another.

“It opened the girls’ eyes up to what the OFSAA experience is like,” notes coach Kathleen Munro-Collins, who’s set her team’s objectives to reach the league semi-final and then hope for the best. “They want to push forward and get back there again.”

Half the Colts’ lineup are new players, although that doesn’t ne-cessarily mean they are field hockey rookies. With international players from countries such as Australia, Kenya and Germany, many bring plenty of experience.

Defensive sweeper Isabelle Kerre-bijn, from the Netherlands, suggested a new formation setup that the Colts have stuck with, and demonstrates

techniques that other players try to emulate. Centre-forward Maddie Monaghan scored a goal early in the season with a wrap-around move she learned from Kerrebijn.

bulldOgS bear faVOuriTe Card

With a perfect 6-0 start, the John McCrae Bulldogs have possibly earned the favourite tag for this year’s title, despite missing OFSAA last sea-son. The upset defeat to Nepean in the 2011 semi-finals interrupted an impressive run of consecutive OF-SAA appearances for the team that is now hungry to return to the big show and pick up on its provincial bronze medal victory two seasons ago.

“We’re happy that it’s in Ott-awa, and we’re hoping to go this year,” notes Grade 12 Bulldog Karli Ryan, who doubles

as a provincial ringette player along with her twin sister. “We want to get first or second. After getting bronze, we want to try to go farther.”

Coach Sandeep Chopra loves the look of his team that owns loads of ex-perience beyond the high school level, including youth national champion-ships competitors Halley Chopra and Caroline Rozon.

“Right now I have an embar-rassment of riches. I’ve inherited 11 Grade 12s and I have likely the two best players in the city,” says Chopra, who’s also got several talented soccer players in his lineup. “The average

level of athletic ability in those Grade 12s is through the roof.”

An experienced coach with his Nepean Nighthawks club, Chopra was “pressed into service” when his Grade 12 daughter came home “with tears shooting out” horizontally the day they’d been told there would be no team horizontally, he describes.

“I said, ‘I’m going to have to do something about this,’” he smiles.

marauderS alSO unbeaTen

The Merivale Marauders were also thankful to have parents step up and fill their coaching void, although Cheryl Sevigny and Bill Osborne readily admit their field hockey know-ledge is not extensive. The senior cap-tains have provided much of the direc-tion for the team.

“It’s hard,” explains Grade 11 player Megan MacPhee, who scored the lone goal in her team’s 1-0 victory over Ashbury. “The players don’t look up to them as much as they would the coaches. It’s not as intense in prac-tice.”

Nonetheless, the Marauders are off to a perfect 4-0 start and are com-mitted to a common cause.

“We’re really strong and I feel we can go far if we just push,” MacPhee adds. “Our goal is to get to OFSAA, and then once we’re there, our goal is to win OFSAA.

“I’d prefer for it to be away, but since it’s in Ottawa, we’ll have huge cheering fans, which will be motivat-ing.”

Contenders line up for berths in local field hockey OFSAABy Dan Plouffe

high schools

With a veteran lineup, the John McCrae Bulldogs are making a strong push for a national capital title, which carries with it a berth in the OFSAA championships, to be hosted Nov. 1-3 at the Nepean Sportsplex.

photo: dan plouffe

After placing third and second in her first two attempts, Estée Deschamps won her first high school girls’ golf city title on Oct. 1 at Rideau View.“I’m pretty proud of myself,”

says the Grade 11 Louis-Riel high school student who shot 79 at the course where she’s a member. “I had a lot of fun.”The runner-up, St. Peter’s

Grace St. Germain, would like

to copy Deschamps’ example as she progresses in her high school golf career.“I’d like to come top-10 at

OFSAA and do really, really good,” highlights St. Germain, who is one of the youngest members of the under-17 Team Ontario at age 14. “It’s fun, and it does kind of feel good to beat the older people.”Taking the boys’ team title

were Maniel Joshi, Dallas Clancy, David Iaderosa and Liam Daher of St. Fran-cis-Xavier.“We had a lot of new people,”

notes Joshi, who led the way with an 80, good for second place individually behind Franco-Cité’s Eric Marshall at 77. “We all came here to have fun, that was our main goal, and it worked out for us.”

The Louis-Riel high school sports-études program one-upped the Sept. 29 Sports Day in Canada by holding special sports activities throughout the full week beforehand. A major highlight was the 12-hour sports festival day where 200 students split up into teams to represent provinces and territories in a Canada Games-style competition. The school held a highly-organized 5k Terry Fox Run (above), held demonstrations of lesser-known sports, and received visits from Paralympic medalists Patrice Dagenais (wheelchair rugby) and Jason Dunkerley, along with his guide runner, Josh Karanja, as well as alumnus Kellie Ring, a University of Ottawa Gee-Gees basketball star. Through the events, the school raised over $10,000 for the Terry Fox Foundation and for the family of a teacher whose young son, Olivier Ulysse, is battling serious digestive system troubles.

ESP LouiS-RiEL EmbRacES SPoRtS Day in canaDa SPiRit

toP-2 high SchooL giRLS’ goLf finiShERS on SimiLaR Path with tEam ontaRio

Ashbury’s Julia Malone (left) and Immaculata’s Danielle Humilde were both OFSAA golf qualifiers from the Oct. 1 national capital high school golf championships at Rideau View Country Club.

photo: dan plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

3

As sports across the board were thrown into turmoil this fall by the labour strife at public schools, the high school football landscape has been altered considerably as well – although it’s ongoing issues that came to a head this season that caused the changes moreso than the political conflict.

After receiving exemptions in recent years to operate with less than the required eight teams, there is no national capital junior (Grade 9-10) football league this season, as only four schools intended to enter squads. Lack of players, coaches, equipment and officials have been persisting challenges.

“I think a solution has to be found where there’s junior and senior football,” says Rick Varden, who coached the Sir Wilfrid Laurier Lancers in the jr. final last year. “I hope it’s not the last we see of junior football, but it may be the last we see of it in the format we used to have.”

Ideas have been floated such as playing 7-on-7 or 9-on-9 football, or creating a league for Grade 7-9 players – particularly intriguing for French and Catholic schools where high schools run from Grade 7-12. Franco-Cité is playing in a Quebec league for Grades 7-9 this fall.

And there’s talk of restarting a springtime jr. league. In the final year of a pilot project in 2009-10, 11 schools entered, although conflict-ing springtime seasons with rugby was the main reason it didn’t con-tinue previously.

“There is a will” to have a jr. league in some form, adds Varden, highlighting the importance of jr. football to high school freshmen who have a tough time competing on the field against bigger seniors. “It’s nice when you can get a stu-dent in Grade 9 and the first week of September for two hours every day after school you know what they’re going to be doing. It’s that link to the school that’s really important.”

With 65 kids ready to try out for the defending jr. champions’ team, news that there’d be no league this fall was “devastating” at St. Peter Catholic High School. Since the sr. squad had been together for over three weeks already when they learned there’d be no jr. league, no jr.-age players were added to the Knights sr. team.

“Right now we have jr. boys with nothing to do at our school,” says coach Jim Mick, noting the Knights’ jr. program plays a key role in the run of four consecutive cham-pionships his sr. side has enjoyed. “It’s important because those kids get exposure to the game. Some of

the simplest things. They learn the game, they learn about positions, they learn the fundamentals, and they learn about what it’s like to wear blue and silver on the football field.”

new fOrmaT fOr SeniOr ball

At the sr. level, league admin-istrators have implemented a new format in an attempt to combat the dwindling number of schools enter-ing the Tier 1 loop. Only four teams have played at the top level this year and last, while the Tier 2 league fea-tures 12 competitors.

After the first three games, the top four T2 teams in the standings will each play a pair of contests against T1 squads. They’ll all return to their original levels for the sixth and final regular season game as well as the playoffs. The hope is that some of the T2 schools may realize they are T1 calibre, coaches explain.

“I think it’s great,” Mick states, adding that the T2 league was cre-ated to get more kids involved in football, so smaller schools could have teams and be competitive, and new schools could develop pro-grams. “It wasn’t for teams to drop down to win championships.”

Colonel By, Franco-Cité, St. Pius, St. Joseph, Mother Teresa, St. Patrick, and the defending T2-cham-pion Lancers are all contenders for the T2 crown.

“We have a lot of talent at skilled positions,” highlights Varden, who elected to stay in T2 since his team had under 30 players. “We just don’t have enough bodies. We’re scrim-maging 12 against 10, 12 against 9. It’s not really productive.”

ST. fx COyOTeS On prOwl TO TeST ST. peTer SupremaCy

There’s one more place where a sweeping change may occur – the sr. championship throne perennially occupied by St. Peter.

That’s due to the arrival of the St. Francis-Xavier Coyotes in the T1 ranks. Few teams can lay claim to owning a winning record of any sort against the dynastic Knights, but that’s exactly the case for the four-year-old Riverside South school. Two seasons ago, their group won the jr. championship over St. Peter, and now would like to write a sim-ilar story in sr.

“They’ve got some athletes that are very, very, very good,” says Mick, who believes St. FX is also a dangerous opponent because they aren’t as familiar with the new-comers’ tendencies. “They seem to be running through some teams.”

Runningback Babatunde Ad-eleke – who could likely keep his balance in a tornado – is the biggest offensive weapon for the Coyotes. St. FX blasted St. Matthew 42-1 and St. Mark 30-6 to open their campaign prior to a Thursday, Oct. 11 test against the Knights, their un-beaten counterparts.

But head coach Mark Jennings knows it won’t be easy to knock off the perennial school football kings.

“I think we have a chance, but to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man and they’ve been the man for the last four years,” explains Jennings, who missed his team’s playoff de-feat to eventual Tier 2-champ Sir Wil last season when his wife went into labour. “St. Pete’s is doing the drive for five, and we’re doing our first year in sr. Tier 1 foot-ball. There’s a big difference, but we feel confident that this is our team to do it.”

high SchooLSSweeping changes to HS football

By Dan Plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

Babatunde Adeleke (right) and the St. Francis-Xavier Coyotes are legitimate can-didates to end the St. Peter Knights’ reign atop the senior Tier 1 football world.

Doc hockey cornerNo NHL? Who

cares! The 67’s and the OHL are here and exciting!

I was fortunate enough to help train a young, very talented Niagara

Ice Dogs goalie prospect this summer. Brent Moran played for the Jr. 67’s this past year and was picked in the second round of the OHL draft by Niagara. I ended up meeting Brent, the 15-year-old 6’4” goalie, and began training him for quick explosive power.

He was very professional, dedicated and hard-working, he never complained, and put out 100% regardless of the task or mood. He was even so gracious on his last week at home to volunteer his time to help out young players at Doc Hockey Development Camp and assist with drills on the ice.

Recently I had the opportunity to watch his team play in the OHL against Ottawa, and to discuss his hockey development over the years. Brent started playing organized hockey at age 7, playing defence in his first year before making the switch to goalie.

“I loved the excitement and pressure of being a goalie,” Brent explains. “It seems like the team depends on you and counts on you and I liked that feeling.”

Brent was a talented player but his work ethic always seemed to separate him from others. His father attributes skating at an early age to assisting his agility in the crease.

Brent started playing AAA at the first oppor-tunity in minor bantam and continued to play AAA until minor midget. Brent believes that every hockey player will have to make sacri-fices throughout the journey to reach the next level. “In the long run,” he says, “the person with a good work ethic will always beat the person with only talent.”

This comment reminded me of the book Talent is Overrated where they note that even child prodigies like Mozart and Tiger Woods worked tirelessly for their success as youngsters and were blessed with great role models and training while growing up – not just innate gifts from birth.

Brent says the biggest influences in his hockey development were “my parents and my goalie coach Shawn Smith who I met when I started playing goal at the age of 7. He taught me everything I know and my par-ents supported me all throughout my career, I couldn’t have done it without them.

“I also think Shayne Baylis helped me a lot with his Doc Hockey program in my minor

midget year by making me stronger and more explosive; I truly believe it helped me develop my game and get ready for the next level.”

While growing up, Brent was a multi-sport athlete, playing competitive soccer until age 12 when he directed his attention solely to hockey. Brent decided to play in the OHL after a long discussion with his parents de-bating whether to come to the OHL or go to school in the NCAA. Brent’s agent was also helpful in discussing the benefits and disad-vantages of the OHL and NCAA schooling. Together they felt Niagara was the best fit for Brent’s goals and growth as a player.

Niagara offered a good situation with renowned goalie coach Ben Vanderklok, and also provided personal independence, re-sponsibility and accountability by being away from home. Managing time and schoolwork on top of practice, workouts and the regular school day “really helps you mature as a per-son,” notes Brent, who would like to go into sports management or business if hockey doesn’t work out. “I think the best advice I ever got growing up was that if you really want to play at the highest level possible, you have to work for it. There’s always someone out there working harder than you so you just have to work as hard as you can all the time and leave no stone unturned.”

I also recently spoke with Brent’s father, Bruce. Bruce was really proud of how mature Brent has become, and I must agree. From my experience since the initial meeting, Brent was very respectful and motivated. Brent’s had a lot of influences on his way to the OHL from good family support, professionalism, multiple sports growing up, key trainers at the right time of his development, and an agent to help with recruiting and promoting his skill. I would like to thank Brent and Bruce for taking time out of their busy schedules to talk to us.

Stay tuned for my next article on getting to the next level by promoting yourself and being your own agent.

Brent Moran’s path to the OHL --By Dr. Shayne Baylis, Doc Hockey

doc hockey

@doc_hockey

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

PREVENTION - PERFORMANCE - RECOVERY

4

There are countless similar stories across the city, as many English public schools didn’t enter teams this fall in girls’ basketball, senior boys’ volleyball, boys’ soccer, football, field hockey, golf and cross-country running.

A handful of teams could very well be miss-ing OFSAA trips and provincial medals. Un-der-16 800 m national track bronze medalist Erinn Stenman-Fahey made a strong OFSAA debut in her rookie running season last year along with her Canterbury Chargers teammates.

With many members of the Ottawa Fusion volleyball club’s national silver medalists on their team, the Lisgar Lords would have been major contenders in the ‘AAA’ senior boys’ vol-leyball ranks. Among those affected is national tournament all-star Ben Harper, the Prime Min-ister’s son.

The current situation stems from a bill passed in early September by the Ontario gov-

ernment that freezes teacher wages for two years, bans strikes, and reduces sick days while not allowing them to be carried over year-to-year. French and Catholic board teacher unions reached understandings with the government for the two-year period and have carried on with sports as usual. The English public board unions, however, encouraged teachers to think carefully about whether to volunteer their time with extra-curricular activities.

Without a vote from union members to back a full work-to-rule campaign before the fall sport entry deadline, the less-powerful “choose wisely” message has created different scenarios across the province and across the Ottawa-Car-leton District School Board.

Teachers from some schools decided en masse to continue coaching, with support from their athletic directors. That includes Colonel By (with the surprise exception of its traditionally powerful cross-country team) and Glebe – the two schools that finished atop the high school

rankings compiled by former Ottawa Citizen reporter Martin Cleary for the past six years.

Some schools have a handful of teams coached by teachers who decided to go ahead, while some elected not to enter any – many out of fear that a later full-out work-to-rule would cause them to shut down teams midway through their seasons.

Some schools’ principals and teachers did all they could to accom-

modate parent or community volunteers willing to step in and coach, while some would-be vo-lunteers met resistance at other schools.

In general, the best sports schools have their best teams playing this fall, schools in wealth-ier neighbourhoods have some teams running thanks to the parents who were able to scream loudest to let them volunteer, and schools in poorer areas have no teams.

That discrepancy wasn’t lost on OCDSB trustees, who instructed staff to “pay partic-ular attention to our high-needs schools and our schools in rural areas where the activities may have extra importance for the students in those schools,” board of trustees chair Jennifer McKenzie explains. The trustees also passed a motion asking staff to do everything reason-ably possible to encourage volunteers to run ex-tra-curricular activities.

There’s still a persisting concern that cham-pion teams may not be able to attend OFSAA since rules state that a teacher must be present. But it is not expected to be a major issue since schools are committed to finding solutions such as using occasional teachers or administrators in that role if necessary, OCDSB associate director of education Walter Piovesan indicates.

inequaliTieS aT differenT SCHOOlS

For students such as Mohsen, getting to the point where they’d have to deal with that type of problem would be a dream.

“I’m jealous because other schools get to play,” he explains. “You can’t keep one team down while others get to play. I’m mad.”

Berhe feels similarly upset.“It’s not fair that other schools have sports,

even in the same board,” he says, pointing out that the unequal ground lessens the incentive to broker a solution to the conflict. “If the strike continues, people won’t fight to have sports come back, they’ll just try to change schools and go to the one that has the sports.”

That’s an option three members of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier Lancers girls’ basketball team say they are seriously considering as they look down the road at the full slate of sports at St. Peter Catholic High School.

The girls provided a representative image of the inequity that exists this fall as they spoke about their frustrations on their school field sidelines as they watched pre-game warm-ups for the Lancers’ football team, which is coached by Eric Kukkonen, both a teacher- and par-ent-coach thanks to his son Stephan’s role as starting quarterback.

“I’m angry about it. It’s all boys teams,” the basketball girls note, each completing one another’s thoughts. “Girls don’t get anything. They don’t think it’s as important to us. It’s total BS.”

The Lancers senior girls won the city Tier 2 basketball title in 2011, and the members of last year’s junior team were looking forward to rejoining a talented group of seniors.

“We were going to be defending champions this year,” one player notes. “I was really ex-cited to play with them, and then I was really devastated when we couldn’t.”

Each of the girls used to play community basketball with Gloucester-Cumberland, but now they aren’t playing together at all, com-petitively or recreationally. It’s not as fun to be

on sidelines, but the trio made the best of what they had left by hanging out and continuing their friendships that were created through sport.

“I met her because of basketball in Grade 9,” explains one girl who wasn’t keen to have her name used in the newspaper. “We never used to like each other until we had to play basketball together. That’s the truth.”

‘memOrieS wOrTH building’

The Ottawa Sportspage contacted numerous dedicated teacher-coaches, but most declined in-terview requests – many nonetheless expressing their sadness about the situation.

Glebe coach and national capital cross-coun-try league convenor Kirk Dillabaugh did high-light the important role sports play in high schools.

“For a lot of students who can’t afford the time and money community sports take, high school sports is there for them,” notes Dillabaugh, whose daughter, Adara, competes for the Gryphons. “Cross-country running is so cheap, anyone can run on a high school team. It’s important to be part of something when you are in high school.

“When I look back at my high school years, I don’t remember what happened in the class, just what happened with my buddies on the sports teams. Those memories are worth building.

“It’s sad the fields are smaller, but I be-grudge my colleagues’ decisions.”

Even for those athletes who are competing this year, it won’t be the same, they maintain.

“It will always be the year of work-to-rule where many schools and athletes didn’t particip-ate,” says cross-country runner Tim Austen, also a Glebe student council member. “Of course the results aren’t going to be respected. It has defin-itely put a negative spin on this year.”

Few of the athletes offered opinions either way on the political battle. Most felt helpless.

“I think it’s stupid why they’re fighting with the sports,” offers one of the Lancer basketball players. “I think they should just settle it.”

The Lancers girls will be a little calmer about the whole thing as long as they get to play bas-ketball next year, and play rugby in the spring.

“We’re hoping,” they add. “But especially for the Grade 12s, it was their last year.

“It was their last year to play.”Asked if there was any message they wished

to share with those involved in the dispute, the Lancers answered unanimously with a single voice, loud and clear.

“Bring us our sports back!”

HS SPORTS: High school student-athletes take brunt of political battlehigh schools

continued from Front Cover

file photo

file photo

5

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community cLubSU15&U17 Hornets win unique Cup double

The Gloucester Hornets U15 and U17 girls’ teams share a lot of things. This in-cludes a practice field, a devel-opmental philosophy for these young players, and friendship and mentorship between the girls.

And with the 2012 sea-son now in the books, the two teams can also boast that share the same success on the soc-cer pitch – both squads hav-ing captured East Region Cup championships.

“I was quite pleased with the overall performance of the team,” said George Papandreou, the head coach of the U15 Hornets. “The girls learned a lot about the nature of the competition and im-proved both the technical and tactical aspects of their game.”

The Gloucester U15 team had a 12-2-4 overall record this year, including a perfect 4-0 mark in the ER Cup games. Their season was capped off by a 3-2 win in the Cup finals against the Nepean Hotspurs on Sept. 16 in Kemptville, a game in which Carolyn Wil-liams registered two goals, while Kelsey Ellis scored the game-winner.

Gloucester’s only losses in the regular season came against the undefeated Nepean Hotspurs, who finished 10 points ahead of the second-place Hornets. But the Hornets were able to come through in Cup play, thanks to clutch play by the likes of top goal scorers Williams, Kelsey Ellis and Alyssa Baker.

“In the first two games against Nepean, we did not

have the full squad out, and perhaps were not fully men-tally prepared to face our op-ponents,” said Papandreou, whose team also captured the ER Cup title in 2011. “The East Region Cup final was another story. We started preparing technically and mentally for the final by having practices to help counteract Nepean’s mid-field prowess, and we changed our formation to do the same. We fired on all cylinders in that game and dominated.”

HOrneTS u17S perfeCT

The Hornets U17s team ar-guably enjoyed an even more successful season than their younger counterparts, winning both the regular season title and the ER Cup. They finished with a dominant 12-0-3 record in the league play, but were faced with a determined Bel-leville side in the Cup finals. After regulation play ended in a 0-0 tie, the two teams went to penalty kicks, which Gloucester won.

“This was their most suc-cessful season ever for this group of kids, most of them who have been playing to-gether for several years,” noted head coach Bruce McKay, who received a league-high 24 goals from Sophie Curtis, while goalkeeper Karleigh Bell recorded 10 shutouts this season.

u17S menTOr u15 grOup

One reason for the Hor-nets’ successes is that the play-ers from the two teams prac-ticed together and learned from each other all season long, with the older girls providing mentorship and leadership to

the younger group. Two of the girls on Papandreou’s team even had sisters who played for the U17 team – perhaps a healthy dose of sibling rivalry pushing the Gloucester teams towards their “Cup double” this season.

“The coach from the other team and I are friends as well, and we arranged to have our practices on the same field,” McKay highlighted. “So the girls know each other and they also scrimmage against each other from time to time.”

“The fact that the U17 team won the East Region Cup as well is a testament to how this kind of friendly compet-ition, in a safe environment, goes a long way towards building confidence,” added Papandreou.

er Cup reSulTS

Along with the Hornets U15 girls, seven other cham-pions were crowned from the U13 to U16 age groups on ER Cup championship day. An-other Gloucester team came out on top as their U14 boys topped Cumberland 3-1.

Ottawa South United was also a double-winner as the Force U16 girls beat Glen-garry 2-1 and their U13 girls trounced Nepean 6-1.

The Nepean Hotspurs were represented in exactly half the finals, with their U16 boys bringing home the lone title with a 2-0 victory over Gloucester. Nepean fell 5-4 to Cataraqui in U15 boys’ play. Seaway Valley bested Cum-berland 6-5 in the U14 girls’ final, while Capital United outlasted Gloucester 5-4 in the U13 boys’ category.

By Jaehoon Kim

The Gloucester Hornets U15 girls celebrated an ER Cup title for the second consecutive year.photo provided

6

Three young members of the Parmar Futuro Academy are learn-ing that Europe is a long way from McKellar Park – both geograph-ically, and in terms of the quality of soccer that is played across the ocean.

Grade 5 students Sahal Arwo, Christopher Yoo and Dominic Lopes were all selected for train-ing opportunities with professional clubs, in England and in Holland.

Bunking at his mom’s friend’s house, Arwo trained with MK Dons, a club located less than 100 km northwest of London, at the end of August.

“It was really, really fun,” smiles Arwo. “I would not trade anything in the world to get to that place and to play with the English players.”

Arwo was impressed by play-ers from other clubs, such as Liver-pool and Manchester United, who were attending the open tryout.

“I didn’t only experience that club, I got to experience clubs from all around England,” notes Arwo, who also enjoyed seeing the sights of London, such as Big Ben, Wembley Stadium and the Olympic Stadium.

Arwo noticed that the players he encountered there were much more aggressive than he’s used to.

“It was a lot of fun, but it was

harder than back here in Canada,” highlights the young footballer who was selected by coach James Nash for the opportunity after showing well at a local camp in late July.

Arwo believes the experience has already paid dividends for him, and recommends it for any other local players who are able to do it.

“Instead of being at the Cana-dian level, you’re going to be at the English level,” explains Arwo, his eyes lighting up as soon as he men-tions English soccer. “It’s a higher level than in Canada, so when you come back here, it’s going to be a lot easier.”

Getting exposed to more phys-ical and competitive players is the biggest benefit Ottawa Royals coach Cormac Rea sees in having

Futuro Academy kids head over-seas.

“They get a very different test than they do here,” Rea says. “They eat and breathe the game over there like we do hockey here. When you walk into an environment like that, I liken it very much to an English kid coming in here to a top-level hockey academy.”

Yoo and Lopes will be up next as they go to train with the De Graafschap professional club in Holland. The pair attended a Dutch scouting camp in mid-July and were selected to train there by the club’s U15 coach.

“They’re very enthusiastic,” Rea highlights, identifying a main ingredient in the players’ success. “And they’re remarkably focused for their age.”

Futuro players get taste of European soccerBy Dan Plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

Dominic Lopes, Sahal Arwo and Chris-topher Yoo all earned opportunities to train with clubs in Holland or England recently.

As November comes closer and the weather gets colder, sports teams around Ottawa will be moving indoors; however, one team will likely be outdoors a bit longer if the status quo persists.

With a 12-0-1 record and only three games left in the season, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s soccer team are set to storm into the Ontario University Athletics playoffs and make a claim for the top prize and a berth into the national championships, due to be held in warmer parts Nov. 8-11 in Victoria, B.C.

The Gee-Gees have been one of the strongest sides in Ontario for almost two decades now un-der the guidance of head coach Steve Johnson. They’ve won six provincial crowns along the way (the last one coming in 2006), and have one national title to their credit from 1996.

It’s been a bit of a drought in terms of cham-pionship wins in recent years, although there’s definitely a major buzz about this year’s squad.

Coming off a bronze medal win at last year’s Canadian Interuniversity Sport championships in Montreal, the Gee-Gees have conceded only one goal all season en route to their undefeated mark. That’s earned them the distinction of be-ing ranked atop the CIS top-10 poll of Canadian women’s university soccer teams, for the first time since October 2007.

Second-year Gee-Gee Pilar Khoury, an Ot-

tawa native, believes the squad is ready to take the next step to the top of the podium after last year’s experience.

“We were very satisfied with the way we played, but we took some teams lightly and some teams not, but this year we just decided that we are going to go all out every game,” says the striker with Gloucester Hornets roots. “We learned from the mistakes from last year and we kind of just build on that. We have goals that we want to get to by the end of the season, and it’s

just step by step. Everything is working so far.”Fresh off winning the Ottawa Fury club’s

first-ever North American W-League title this past summer, veteran Ottawa U defender Gillian Baggott is in the midst of her final season as a Gee-Gee and would love to cap it off with a title.

“I’ve had a great experience from the first day I walked in, and nothing would be better then to end on a big win,” smiles the communic-ations student who possesses plenty of offens-ive flair despite her sweeper role. “And we’ve

been doing so well so far, so I really couldn’t ask for anything more from my teammates and coaches.”

Coach Johnson has been pleased with the team’s work, highlighting strong play on both sides of the ball en route to a 40-1 total goal dif-ferential.

Team Speed SpringS ggS TO frOnT Of paCk

Comparing last year’s bronze medal team to his current group, Johnson maintains that the 2011 squad “was probably a harder team to play against in terms of physicality, but I think this year’s team moves the ball a little bit quicker, and it makes it difficult for the other team to have as much of the ball as we do.”

As is usually the case, born and bred Ottawa players make up the majority of the Gee-Gees’ roster. On top of Baggott and Khoury, some of the other key local contributors include former Nepean Hotspur Lili Wong, former Hornet Chelsea Lanos and former Cumberland Cobra Julia Francki, who Johnson plucked right from Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School where he teaches.

“I think we’ve got more local players than any Gee-Gee team,” Johnson remarks. “And it’s probably because that’s where I spend a lot of my time recruiting, looking at the local kids and trying to find the best ones to come in and try and contribute to our program.”

#1-ranked Gee-Gees want national crown to matchBy Cory Correia Patrice Dagenais (right)

found himself on a wheelchair rugby provincial team not long after taking up the sport. He first dressed for the senior national team in 2009 and will make his Paralympic debut in London.

Ranked #1 in Canada, the Gee-Gees women’s soccer team has outscored opponents 40-1 en route to a 12-0-1 record.

photo: dan plouffe

universities

7

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Bernard received an e-mail from the OYSL on the Monday before their supposed final game stating that they’d have to replay the previous match against Bradford – for a full 90 minutes, with the score reset at zeros. Needing three points for a win to fin-ish on top of the division, it would be the same as starting with a 1-0 deficit.

Bernard was told in that e-mail that the rescheduled match would take place at Bradford the day after the teams were set to meet in Ottawa. But the next day, he was told it was switched to the following weekend, on Sept. 29.

OSU hoped the situation would be rectified by then through their protests to the OSA – and believed both league and FIFA rules supported their case – but instead wound up fa-cing a baffling scenario.

The showdown between the OYSL east and west division cham-pions had already been scheduled for Sept. 29 – a week after the regular season was supposed to be finished. The winner of that match would then advance to face the Quebec champi-ons on the Thanksgiving weekend.

Due to an error in a game two months earlier, the Force girls were suddenly charged with the task of beating third-place Bradford for a third time this season, and then, if they were successful, taking on well-rested west division-champion Burlington later the same day.

“To be quite honest, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all,” Bernard says. “Whatever reasons they have, I don’t know. But for them to wait until the last minute to inform us that we have to replay the game against Bradford, I thought that was unfair.

“Then we had to play one game

in the morning, and then if we win that game, we play at 4 o’clock – well, that is not fair at all however you look at it. You cannot have these girls at that age, at that level, play two games in a row.”

They didn’t make it to the second game. OSU carried a 1-0 lead thanks to a first-half goal by Dmuchalsky into the final 15 minutes of the replayed match. After gaining prominence for the first time in the Canada vs USA Olympic women’s semi-final, OSU had the now-infam-ous eight-second violation called against its goalkeeper in the late stages. Bradford didn’t score on the

ensuing indirect free kick, but did off a later corner kick, which OSU felt was awarded incorrectly.

The end result was a 1-1 tie and a second-place finish – one point back of Woodbridge, who went on to defeat both the west conference and Quebec

champions.“All the

girls were cry-ing,” Bern-ard describes. “Because the league took s o m e t h i n g away from them, and they knew it.”

T h e Ontario Soccer A s s o c i a t i o n did not respond to an Ottawa Sportspage re-quest for an interview for further explan-ation, as of press time.

OSU ex-pects to receive word later this

month on their current appeal to have the Force’s division title reinstated, although since they’ve already missed their chance to progress farther, the decision is not of utmost importance to Bernard.

“In our eyes, we finished first. And in our heart, we know it,” says the soft-spoken coach. “I asked the girls to write down comments about the season. All of them, in their com-ments, said we know that we finished first.”

The memory Bernard wants his players to retain is how they felt when the final whistle blew on Saturday, Sept. 22 at George Nelms fields in Manotick, when they became the first-ever Ottawa OYSL division champions.

“I wasn’t expecting (the final whistle),” Bailey said in her post-game interview, a smile overtaking her face as she recalled celebrating the historic moment with her team-mates, in front of their proud parents and club members from many differ-ent levels. “I was just focusing on the game, so when it went, I was just the happiest person ever.

“I feel amazing. It’s amazing that we could accomplish this.”

photo: hargreaves photography

Pat Biggs says that never suffer-ing a complete tear of the ACL knee ligament may have been the biggest blessing of his career. This from a skier racer who lists off the following injuries from recent years: four knee surgeries, two on each knee, to repair meniscus and cartilage damage, and partial ligament tears; a degenerat-ive lower back disk; a broken wrist; the loss of a testicle; and the one that pushed to his recently-announced re-tirement – a second concussion.

“It’s frustrating. If you have a knee injury, it’s two months or six months to rehab and I’ll be back to 100%, but with any type of head in-jury, you never really know,” says Biggs, who just turned 30 and decided

the time was right to move on to new things in life.

“There’s a lot of things that go

into recovery and coming back from an injury. This summer that fire wasn’t in me to come back from this

one. It would have been a long road with a head injury.

“You’re never quite sure how it’s

going to react to training, and the pos-sibility of another crash.”

But despite the beating Biggs’ body has taken, avoiding the com-plete anterior cruciate ligament tear that spells the end for maybe slalom athletes was key in allowing him to enjoy a career of over a decade as one of the world’s elite ski racers.

“Injuries are part of the sport,” the Orleans native shrugs. “You train to be in condition where you hopefully don’t get hurt, but there’s always some risk in ski racing. There’s been a lot worse guys than me for injuries.

“I guess I’m kind of blessed that I made it through healthy. I did have a long career on the circuit which I’m thankful for.”

community cLubS2-time Olympic alpine skier Biggs calls it a career

Pat Biggs competed in the Torino and Vancouver Olympics and twice cracked the top-10 at world championships.

By Dan Plouffe

BIGGS continued on p.10

file photo

FORCE FARCE: OSU faced with 2 must-win games on same day due to replayed match from 2 months agocontinued from Back Cover

OSU coach Widdgin Bernard wants the moment after the final whistle when they thought they’d won the OYSL U14 girls’ east division title be the last memory his players retain from their first OYSL season.

photo: dan plouffe

8 SPoRtSPagE SnaPShotS

OlympianS & SpeCial OlympianS uniTe fOr mOTiOnball fundraiSer

wOrld uniVerSiTy brOnze fOr wreSTler

fundraiSer fOr lOCal xC Ski Olympian

dual HOnOurS fOr OTTawa able-SailOr

gee-geeS SOfTball Spread meSSage abOuT impOrTanCe Of SuiCide preVenTiOn

Former National Capital Wrestling Club member Ilya Abelev won a bronze medal at the 2012 FISU World University Championships on Oct. 2 in Finland. The University of Western Ontario student competed in the men’s 66 kg event. Having won a Pan American cadet wrestling bronze earlier this year with Tsunami Academy, Torin Macfadyen of Takahashi Dojo switched disciplines and placed fifth at the Pan Am youth judo championships.

The third-annual Marathon of Sport Ottawa Mo-tionball event on Sept. 15 at the Rideau Canoe Club raised over $20,000 for Special Olympics Canada. 36 Special Olympians, 12 Olympic athletes and 120 participants formed 12 teams to com-pete in the full day of traditional sports that included soccer-baseball, ball hockey, bun ball, basketball, volleyball, soccer and dragonboat racing. Organizers Christine Bain, Ryan Cuthbert and Ian Mortimer called it a “fantastic event, full of energy and smiles” and thanked all those who donated, volunteered and participated.

The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s softball team dedicated its recent games to the memory of Jamie Hubley and wore “Acceptance” bracelets to raise awareness and money for suicide prevention in Ottawa. A former figure skater, Hubley committed suicide last year.

The Kanata teen had struggled with depression and loneliness – and from bullying that came with being the only openly gay

teen in his Ottawa-area high school. His parents have since raised over $800,000 for suicide prevention in Ottawa. The Gee-Gees will continue to sell rainbow-coloured wrist bands for $2 in support of the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa.

Marc Villeneuve was the big winner at the 2012 Mo-bility Cup, held Sept. 8-15 at the Nepean Sailing Club. The Laval-des-Rapides, Que. athlete took home the top prize - the Mobility Cup itself - as he held onto an early lead all week in the Gold fleet. Second place went to Gatineau’s Christine Lavallee, who also won the Debbie Donald Award for highest-placing female sailor. In the Silver fleet, top honours (the Coupe Dallaire) were taken by Patrick Leger of Montreal, while Brian Cuerrier of Belleville took second place and Ralph Nolting of Ott-

awa came third. Nolting also earned the Hamilton Port Authority Award for Determination in recognition of his performance throughout the week. Gold fleet is for racers who can sail alone; Silver fleet is for those who require a companion. The Mobility Cup is recognized as Canada’s premier regatta for sailors with disabilities.

The West Ottawa Soccer Club (WOSC) has announced that Bjorn Osieck will join the organization as its inaugural Chief Executive

Officer in December 2012.Founded in 2010 as the result of a merger

of soccer clubs in the west end of Ottawa, the club is currently the largest soccer club in the (Ottawa) area, and the second largest club in the Country, with an ambitious vision to match.

“The Board invested considerable efforts in the recruitment of our Club’s first CEO,” stated WOSC President Brian Mason. “We are elated to have been able to secure a candidate with the proven soccer pedigree and business acumen Bjorn Osieck brings to the table.”

Osieck joins the club after 6-and-a-half years at the helm of the British Columbia Soccer Association, the third largest soccer governing body in the country with some 150,000 registered players, coaches, offi-cials, and volunteers. Prior to that, Osieck had led the operations of the Saskatchewan Soccer Association from 2003 to 2006.

“I am thrilled to join forces with Brian Ma-son and the entire WOSC board and staff team to serve the club’s growing member-ship base,” stated Osieck.

“Much has been said in recent years about what we collectively have to do to ensure Ca-nadian Soccer’s future success at all levels and I firmly believe that Clubs like the WOSC are the grassroots engine to drive the needed changes in the years ahead,” he added.

AdVANCINg LTPd AT ALL LEVELsSince its inception, the Club has made an

unwavering commitment to the Canadian Soccer Association’s Long Term Player De-velopment philosophy, based on which it de-livers a full suite of programs for very young children catching an “active start” within the beautiful game to adults embracing the be-nefits of being “active for life”.

A variety of league and player develop-ment programs are offered to meet all levels of ability and interest.

“The West Ottawa Soccer Club is founded on a rich heritage of soccer groups that have come together to form this new organization and by the same token is in many respects still a Start-Up at this juncture,” added Ma-son. “We are confident that Bjorn Osieck based on his many years of experience at the highest levels of Canadian Soccer will provide the impetus and direction for the WOSC to come into its own as one of the leading soccer clubs in the country.”

VIsION TO CONTRIbuTE NATIONALLY“In my dialogue with the selection panel, I

was drawn in by their vision for what WOSC wants to provide to soccer players of all ages in the region, while also striving to be a key contributor to soccer’s overall success at a regional, provincial and national level,” stated Osieck. “I will work hard to help to inspire our thousands of active participants and stake-holders to collaborate in new and exciting ways to reach our goals together.”

Osieck will relocate with his family from British Columbia to the Ottawa region to-wards the end of 2012 and commence his tenure with the club shortly thereafter.

wELCOME TO 3 NEw EMPLOYEEsWest Ottawa Soccer is also pleased to an-

nounce the hiring of three new employees.Program Coordinator Heather Ambery will

work with Technical Director Kristina Kiss and will be the main point of contact for technical and program related questions. Both valued volunteers with the Club for many years, Ad-ministrative Assistant Linda Paul will be the first point of contact for the Club, and Ben St. Jean will act as Equipment Manager.

West ottawa soccer scoopWest Ottawa Soccer Club scores big with new CEO Bjorn Osieck

Captain Kelly Avalos and the Algonquin College Thunder women’s soccer team earned a first-place finish in their divisions and secured a trip to the quarter-final playoffs with their most recent 5-0 victory over La Cité collé-giale, while the Thunder men are also looking strong head-ing into their post-season play.

THundering fOrward

OlympiC/paralympiC CelebraTiOn TOur HiTS CapiTalLocal Paralympic wheelchair rugby silver medalist Patrice Dagenais was part of

the sea of Canadian red athletes honoured at Parliament Hill in September for their accomplishments at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Many ath-letes visited local schools before taking their celebration tour to Toronto for a parade.

SpOrT miniSTer learnS TO Curl frOm reCenT Calgary wOrld TOur eVenT finaliSTSKeen to learn a sport he’d never played before and didn’t en-

tirely understand, Canadian minister of sport Bal Gosal recruited a top-notch group of teachers for his first-ever curling outing last month at the Ottawa Curling Club. Amongst Gosal’s teammates and opponents were two-time world champion Craig Savill, veteran coach Earle Morris, and the four members of the 2011 Ontario women’s champion Team Homan rink, including Sport Canada employee Lisa Weagle. A couple weekends later, Weagle, Alison Kreviazuk, Emma Miskew and Rachel Homan were in fine form for an Oct. 5-8 World Curling Tour event in Calgary. The OCC rink knocked off Cheryl Bernard and Shannon Kleib-rink en route to a second-place finish and an $11,000 payday.

barbara ann SCOTT waS One Of OTTawa’S beSTOttawa lost one of its greatest athletes of all time when Barbara Ann Scott

passed away on Sept. 30 at age 84. The former Minto Skating Club member was the women’s singles figure skating gold medalist at the 1948 Olympics.

blind ambiTiOn mOVie TellS life STOry Of para-Speed SkaTerThe premiere of a movie on local deaf-blind speed skater Kevin Frost

premieres at the Centrum Plaza’s Mayfair Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. Algonquin College alumnus Pat Decelles will debut his film Blind Ambi-tion, a profile of Frost’s life and journey to try to make a difference in the world of Paralympic speed skating. More details are available at http://blindambition.eventbrite.ca/ and the trailer can be viewed at http://youtu.be/jrujwQTGvPg

Former Nakkertok cross-country skier and Cana-dian Olympian Perianne Jones will be the star attraction of a Tuesday, Oct. 16 event at the Britannia Yacht Club that includes a waxing workshop and a silent auction from 7 p.m. Tickets, available at Fresh Air Experience or at 613-729-3002, are $30 and help support Jones’ 2013 season.

Ottawa MMA champ “Relent-less” Randy Turner will be back in the ring to defend his title Nov. 9.

The bantamweight will de-fend his Wreck MMA belt against challenger B.J. Ferguson in the co-main event at Casino Lac-Leamy in Gatineau.

The popular local fighter, an unarmed combat trainer for the Ca-nadian Forces during the day, can expect another definitively pro-Ott-awa crowd, but will have his work cut out for him against his new op-ponent, a veteran of the 14th season of The Ultimate Fighter. Although Ferguson lost in the preliminary round on the reality TV show, the experience will have allowed him to develop his skills with the best.

The other co-main event will feature a rematch between Mark “Boots” Holst of the Ott-awa Academy of Martial Arts and Team Bushido’s Nabil “The Thrill” Khatib. The Bushido fighter thought their previous fight was stopped pre-

maturely, and has been clamouring for a do-over ever since, event pro-moters note.

Turner, also of OAMA, won his Wreck title in April with a brutal five-round decision over Winnipeg’s Eric Perez, scored 48-47 by all three judges. The proud soldier will look to improve upon that close result against Ferguson.

“It’s a huge accomplishment,”

he said of winning the belt. “It lets me know I’m getting better and bet-ter with every fight.”

But, he cautioned, “I thought there were definitely some areas highlighted for me to improve on.”

Other local fighters on the card include Chris St-Jean, Pablo San-tos, Jeff Chan, Jason Bissonette, Stephane Bernadel, Mat Papineau, Andrew Walters and James Qouame.

ELitETurner to face TUE foe in title defense

By Ian Ewing

photo: dan plouffe

Eric Hua (left) of the Ottawa Academy of Martial Arts was victorious in his 135-lb. bout against Ultimate’s Mark Diryas at a Throwdown Gatineau event on Sept. 29 at the Casino du Lac Leamy’s Hilton hotel. Evolution’s Tariq Ismail downed Jason Hinds of Pound 4 Pound in the final fight of the 15-match card.

Ottawa home to 1st sledge hockey weddingBy Leah Larocque

Not very many couples can say that they got to get married on their very own “rink of dreams.” And no one besides one recently-married Ottawa couple can boast that they were part of the very first sledge hockey wedding ce-remony in Canadian history.

On Saturday, Sept. 21, Alain and Hazel Bazinet exchanged vows on centre ice at the Canadian Interna-tional Hockey Academy in Rockland in front of family, friends and many players from provincial and na-tional teams, as well as the Sledge Hockey of Eastern Ontario league.

“We kind of threw out crazy ideas because we didn’t want the normal backyard wedding or golf course,” explains 27-year-old Ottawa Sledgehammers player Alain, the captain of Team Ontario who’s played for the national development team. “Because I play sledge hockey and travel and play so much, I threw out the idea of having it at the rink and in-volving the team.

“Hazel was very supportive – as long she could come out on the Zamboni.”

Although Hazel does not play sledge hockey, and does not have a disability, she has spent many hours at the rink and felt it was important to incorporate the game into their wedding.

“Alain is just so passionate about the sport and we wanted our wedding day to capture who we are as a couple and this meant so much for us,” highlights the 39-year-old. “I have always said that Alain’s parents are his #1 fan, and I am his #2.”

The big day also doubled as the baptism ceremony for the Bazinets’ 12-month-old daughter, Victoria.

It was a special day all-around for the tight-knit sledge group, notes SHEO president Serge Lavoie.

“Participating in Alain’s wedding was like being at a brother’s or son’s wedding for SHEO members,” La-voie says.

10 EDitoRiaL

902 Pinecrest Rd. Ottawa, K2B 6B3

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

SPORTSOTTAWA.COM OCTOBER STARS OF THE WEEKName: Dante CobisaSport: SoccerClub: Ottawa South UnitedSchool: Mother Teresa CHSGrade: 10About: The only Ottawa male from on the 2011-12 U15 provincial team, Dante Cobisa has played in high-end tourna-ments in Sweden, Denmark, Texas and Florida with OSU and its affiliate club in Dallas. A 92% student, Cobisa also led his Mother Teresa high school junior team to last year’s city championship.

Name: Alex BerheSport: Cross-country runningSchool: Woodroffe HSClub: Ottawa LionsGrade: 12About: The national capital senior boys’ cross-country silver medalist last year, Alex Berhe and his Woodroffe Tigers are not competing in high school sports this fall. He will not get the chance to im-prove on his 18th-place OFSAA result.

Name: Ali MohsenSport: SoccerSchool: Rideau HSGrade: 12About: Ali Mohsen came within one goal of last year’s championship – the second time in his career he’s reached the city final with his Rideau Rams soc-cer team. Mohsen will not get a chance to win the prize in his senior year since his school did not enter teams this fall.

OCDSB team namesDan Plouffe

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Do you know the team names of the OCDSB schools affected by the teachers’ labour disbute?

Labour dispute steals high school sports from those who need it mostmy heart goes out to the students

who aren’t playing sports this fall. There’s some sympathy there too for the teachers who were dealt a piece of legislation that’s rarely seen in a demo-cratic country.

Showing students that they should stand up when they believe something isn’t right – that’s a good lesson. but doing that by cutting off the activities that makes high school so special is dead wrong.

it’s a shame so few teachers were truly bold enough to stand up to what they know is wrong and tell their union leaders the work action they proposed is jeodardizing students’ well-being.

make no mistake, that is the case. There are certainly sad stories of kids that have worked for years to get a shot at a championship in their senior year – and let’s absorb that thought for a moment.

but the ones they’re truly harming are the kids that need sports the most. They need it to keep them busy after school, they need it to keep them go-ing to school and motivated. i’ve often had teachers confide in me that a star athlete headed for a scholarship could have easily “gone the other way.”

it’s the kids who can only afford high school sports. it’s the kids whose parent isn’t home right after school because they work two jobs. probably teachers would have a tough time ex-plaining the reason for their fight to them.

and it also hurts the athletes for whom high school sports is the pin-nacle of their careers. i was one of them.

if you’d taken away my one shot at OfSaa cross-country, i would have been beyond devastated. i’d worked my ass off for four years, moving from

a bottom-of-the-pack finisher as a ju-nior to 12th out of 92 in my final city championship as a senior, helping my nepean knights to a one-point victory in the team competition.

you know why i remember those stats so easily? not only was it by far the best moment of my (admittedly rather unaccomplished) sports career, but it was one of the best memories of my life. period.

i imagined what it would be like if suddenly those memories were taken from me, and i just felt totally heart-broken for the countless students who are living that exact reality now.

By the way, my five next-best memories from high school are cheering on the basketball girls – our school’s top team at the time – watch-ing our improv team at nationals, being in school plays, participating in student council events, and going to dances.

Sorry mrs. borts, math class didn’t make the cut.

There are grade 9s having an even tougher time integrating into their new high school realities. and there are kids out there now who aren’t making those friendships and connections that last for years.

The teachers’ unions, and the gov-ernment, are taking away the best part of high school. Students are missing the best time of their lives.

I hope that sits fine with those of you who orchestrated this, supported this and failed to stand up to this.

—dan plouffe

Biggs first competed on the North American Cup tour at age 18, win-ning four gold, five silver and four bronze throughout his career on the circuit. He won a pair of Europa Cup races in both 2004 and 2005, earned two World Cup top-10s in 2005 and finished in the top-10 at the 2005 and 2007 world championships. Since announcing his retirement in late September, many people have con-gratulated Biggs on what he accom-plished in his career.

“It’s nice,” he smiles. “Some-times you forget about everything that you have done because you’re always searching for the next thing.”

In recent years, Biggs spent plenty of time searching for the next medical

solution. He feels that his health prob-lems may have kept him from attain-ing his full potential as a racer.

“I had my back injury when I was ranked something like 22nd in the world,” Biggs recalls. “If I’d had another year injury-free there, I think I would have had the opportunity to make big improvements.”

As his world ranking slipped, so did his start position for top inter-national races – a key factor since grooves and ruts on chewed up courses make an enormous difference for athletes starting later on. There were an abundance of recent results with the dreaded first two “DN” ini-tials for did-not-finish or did-not-qualify as the injuries took their toll.

But something he’ll likely appre-ciate even more in future years, Biggs

notes, is that he can call himself a two-time Olympian.

“I’d always dreamed of doing a top-10 or a podium at the Olympics,” he says. “Especially in Torino, I had a good shot at it and gave it everything.”

Biggs was 10th out of 97 athletes after his first slalom run at the 2006 Olympics and went for broke but wound up not finishing the course in his second run.

After numerous injuries to Cana-dian teammates, Biggs was inserted for the giant slalom at the Vancouver Games, placing 35th in his less fa-voured event.

ART, ENgINEERINg & COAChINgThis past summer, Biggs at last

completed his Dartmouth College

degree, majoring in engineering com-bined with an unusual match – studio art. The former NCAA athlete left full-time school to race World Cups, but still plugged through three or four courses in the off-season for 10 years.

Biggs is now looking forward to exploring his artistic side more – he’s currently at a house working on a 10’ x 6’ mural, and a painting he donated for a Canadian Athletes Now Fund auction sold for over $3,000.

Biggs is engaged to be married next year, and will be working at the Camp Fortune club he grew up with to provide high-performance tech-nical direction.

“It’s very exciting,” says the newly-minted coach. “It’ll be fun to try to pass along my knowledge to another generation.”

OTTAWA SPORTSPAGE CROSSWORD

continued from p. 7

BIGGS: The artistic engineer is unleashed


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It’s been a different path for each of them, but current or former Bytown Storm team members Sam-antha Klus, Matt Vierula and Joanna Brown have each punched a ticket for the same place – Auckland, New Zealand, where they’ll compete in the Oct. 20-22 triathlon world cham-pionships’ junior and under-23 cat-egories.

For Vierula, it’s been a long wait to compete at the worlds. The 22-year-old was finally able to train full-time after finishing his degree at the University of Ottawa in the spring. The ability to devote more hours to training – up to 30 hours per week – has allowed the human kinetics grad to realize performance

gains that have been hinted at for years.

“It’ll be pretty exciting,” grins Vierula, a multiple-time national medalist who has yet to compete on as big a stage as New Zealand.

Vierula is looking for a top-20 finish in a field of roughly 70 U23 men, including a handful of Olympi-ans who are fresh from competing in London.

“It’s a pretty stacked field of very talented athletes,” he adds.

Klus, for her part, is attending with a mind towards gaining experi-ence. The 17-year-old is only in her second year of eligibility in the ju-nior category, and to claim the third Canadian slot next to a pair of girls two years older is not common at all, affirms Storm coach Greg Kealey.

The Bell High School senior juggles a busy training schedule of around 20 hours per week on top of her classes. And after attending the North American junior champion-ships in Mexico earlier in the sum-mer, where she finished 13th out of 16 athletes, Klus says she suddenly feels like she belongs at this level.

“(Mexico) was a great learning experience,” she explains, adding that competing against athletes of that calibre has made her want to train even harder.

Vierula echoes that sentiment when talking about the not-yet-one-year-old uOttawa/GO Kingfish Regional Training Centre, which is funded in part by Own The Podium.

“A few of the top swimmers [at Ottawa U] really kicked my butt in the pool, and it gives me good mo-

tivation to keep pushing it,” Vierula high-lights. “One of the great things about the RTC is that it fosters that environment of high-perform-ance, and with the two sports going side-by-side, you have excellence on both sides. It’s great to see.”

Klus is con-sidering fol-lowing in the footsteps of teammate Vier-ula in attending the University of Ottawa for human kinetics, partly for the availability of top-notch train-ing facilities and partners at the U O G O - RT C , she notes.

That wasn’t an option avail-able to Brown before she left for the Uni-

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versity of Guelph last year. After an injury-cursed 2011 season, it could be called a win for the 2010 world junior bronze medalist to simply be healthy again and competing.

But it’s been a standout season by any standard as she earned a ticket to the worlds in her first year in the U23 category on the strength of numerous top results, including a third-place showing at a Sept. 17 Pan Am Cup race in Buffalo.

“It has been a really good year,” Brown said in a Triathlon Canada news release. “Training has been upbeat and smooth. I have been learning a lot, but I feel like I’m getting stronger every race so I’m really looking forward to World Championships.”

Samantha Klus

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Matt Vierula

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Joanna Brown

osu Force Academy ZoneWith a total

of over 65 gold and sil-ver medals from league, Cup and tour-nament play,

it was another banner year for Ottawa’s #1 soccer club, and Ottawa South United took a moment to celebrate the achievements of its members on Sept. 28. Over 400 attended the annual banquet at Centurion Conference and Event Centre for an evening of inspiring speakers, delicious dinner, awards, prizes and of course dancing.

“It was a really great opportunity to re-cognize everyone throughout the club for all our successes,” said OSU head coach Paul Harris, who thanked the crowd for making him feel so welcome since he joined the club early in the summer after previously working with Everton FC. “When you come from the other side of the ocean, it’s hard to know for sure what things will be like. But I’m very pleased to see that OSU really is everything that I perceived it to be. I’m very impressed with the ambitions the club has for the future, and I look forward to helping OSU achieve those in the years to come.”

The club honoured a plethora of teams that won league titles this year – from the young-est EODSA U11 Tier 3-champion boys to the oldest ERSL U16 Level 3 girls champs. Nu-merous OSU teams were also runners-up.

Two OSU girls’ squads captured East Region Cup titles this season – the Force Academy 1999 Black U13 Level 3 team and the Force 1996 Level 3 U16 side.

Three Force teams were runners-up in Ontario Youth Soccer League divisions – the U17 and U15 boys, as well as the U14 girls, who are currently appealing to be recognized as champions due to a controversial de-cision. Four OSU squads earned promotions

to the OYSL for next season – the 1999 Force girls, the 1998 Force girls, the 1997 Force Black boys and the 1996 Force girls.

The club also saluted nine of its

2012 graduates who moved on to play uni-versity soccer and presented special awards to three individuals and two teams at the banquet. Jonathan Gervais received the Peter Cameron Memorial Trophy for a ref-eree who puts “service before self.”

Erica Roberts from the 2001 girls’ Force Academy Blue team displayed the traits for which she was recognized as she accep-ted the Lindsey Catherine Winter Memorial Plaque for the U11 girl who best exemplifies team spirit, dedication to sportsmanship and a love for the game.

Dario Cobisa of the 1997 boys’ Force Black earned the Kirk Quaile Memorial Plaque, presented to an OSU U15 boy who best exemplifies Kirk Quaile’s love and ded-ication to soccer. And the 1998 girls’ Force (OYSL) and 1997 boys’ Force Black squads were chosen for Spirit of Excellence Awards for their success, commitment and dedica-tion to the sport of soccer.

Another major highlight was the evening’s keynote speaker, retired Team Canada de-fender Paul Stalteri.

Stalteri shared the story of his career path to become the Canadian national team player with the most career caps – from get-ting cut from a provincial team as a teenager, to plugging away with a reserves team in the German league and eventually moving up to the first team, and later playing for Totten-ham in the English Premier League, which was the best league in the world at the time.

The man who says his proudest career moments came when wearing Canadian colours also provided advice for the young, aspiring players in the room, stating that maintaining focus at all times on the task at hand is of upmost importance.

“Hard work and dedication are the pillars to success,” said Stalteri, who also congrat-ulated the OSU players on all their accom-plishments this season. “Hard work is the only way to do it.”

OSU banquet plays tribute to standout season throughout club

Paul Stalteri

Erica Roberts

12

By Ian Ewing

JunioR LEaguES

It was a historic moment as they became the first team from the Ottawa region to win an Ontario Youth Soccer League division champi-onship, but the Ottawa South United Force un-der-14 girls’ triumph has now been erased.

First, they experienced elation.Heading into what they thought would be the

final game of their regular season on Saturday, Sept. 22, the OSU girls could finish first in their division with a victory on their home field.

The Force came through with a 3-1 win over Bradford to capture the big prize that had pre-viously eluded two OSU boys’ teams, who’d faced the same situation in their final games this year and last.

“It was very, very exciting,” coach Wid-dgin Bernard smiled after the victory. “The girls wanted it. They wanted this game so bad. Right from the get-go, the girls kept on going and go-ing and going, until the end.”

A 10-4-2 season and a division title is not something the team fathomed prior to their de-

but season in the OYSL.“At the start of the year, we were just

planning to not get relegated,” highlighted Nicole Bailey, who scored two goals to spring OSU ahead 2-1 at the half before Andrianna Dmuchalsky added some breathing room in the late stages of the second half. “This is just amaz-ing for us.”

Bailey said the Force are a tight-knit group that plays for one another since the majority have played on the same team for a remarkable six years.

“A lot of it has to go to our coaches,” adds the Grade 9 Longfields-Davidson Heights Second-ary School student. “We all believe in each other and support each other through everything.”

The club hailed the victory as proof that there’s great value for players to stick together with one club, under one philosophy.

“It’s overwhelming,” said OSU president Bill Michalopulos, who acted as an assistant coach during the game. “We’ve been working hard for 10 years to get to a certain level and today the girls showed we have reached the level we’re expecting.

“It’s beautiful to see, and it’s beautiful to see how happy they are.”

The Force girls had achieved an unprecedented accomplish-ment for Ottawa teams that have largely struggled to compete in the OYSL. Traveling further and more frequently puts teams from the nation’s capital at a disadvant-age compared to their counter-parts from around the GTA, since they are often scheduled to play road games on back-to-back days against a fresh side for the second match.

“A lot of teams from the Toronto area think, ‘Oh, it’s just Ottawa…’” Bernard highlighted. “Now people in the OYSL are real-izing Ottawa has some great teams and some great players, also.”

They may have beaten the best soccer teams the GTA has to of-fer, but the U14 girls couldn’t top the Markham-based OYSL and

Ontario Soccer Association administrators.

preViOuS ViCTOry SCrapped

The controversy that wound up with OSU losing its title stemmed from a mid-July game in mid-July on the road against Bradford, which OSU won 1-0. The problem, Bernard details, is that the referee only played a 40-minute first half instead of the usual 45. Tied 0-0, both coaches realized the error but did not point it out then.

In accordance with FIFA rules that state each half must be of equal length, the referee again called the second half after 40 minutes, although the Bradford coach then complained about the length since OSU had gained a 1-0 victory.

It was a forgotten moment for the Force as they went on to earn the chance to clinch the di-vision title with a win on Sept. 22, but the earlier match crept back up unexpectedly.

“Apparently, they put a protest in, but we didn’t know about it until the season was almost over,” Bernard recounts.

By Dan Plouffe

The real champs

OSU U14 girls have Ottawa’s first OYSL division title ‘taken away from them’ after league ordered a match they’d won to be replayed

FORCE FARCE continued on p.7

photo: dan plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

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