The Comeback Kids

8 ManFootball

to Debutp. 28

p. 24

The Truth Behind Energy Drinksp. 42

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26Mental skills training keeps athletes stress-free and performing better

How some schools are using leadership retreats to raise their ranking

Humber badminton player shines brighter on the court

Leaving the big-budget system in the United States to play in the OCAA

Humber’s golden girl sets a new benchmark in women’s volleyball

Football set to make a comeback in the OCAA, but with a new twist

The flawless season: Is it really what teams (and coaches) strive for?

A look at the best pictures around the OCAA in the last four months

Keep yourself up to date on the who, what, when and where of the OCAA

Sault and Lambton set to reintroduce women’s basketball programs

University-level education with college-level athletics

INSIDE:

You arehere.

Briefs

Gallery

12 18

14

9

7

22

20 32 33

24 28Veteran centre’s size and experience give Vikings basketball a big boost

16-0?

“We water down and spread ourathletes very thin within

the 30 colleges”~page 36

“Our team had the mentality that we were invincible” ~page 20

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The hidden affects of energy drinks on an athlete’s performance

The love of curling is as much about camaraderie as it is about competition

Ontario’s women can’t seem to buy a gold in Canadian competitions

Why keeping hydrated should be an athlete’s top priority before game time

Collège Boréal finding big success against schools 20 times its size

All the stats from the OCAA’s

winter seasons

Expert weighs in on the big

issues facing the OCAA today

Alternative medicine looks to find cures without using drugs

Durham baller leads league in points and sees a future playing pro overseas

Brooks creates new bio-degradeable kicks for eco-conscious runners

Type-1 diabetic plays through the constant pressures of the disease

Photo gallery: Playground nostalgia fuels a surge in dodgeball leagues

Rogers and Humber partner up to broadcast games in high-definition

Scoreboard

Coach’s Corner

34

36 44 50

42 46 51 54

40 48 52

“When I have the ball, I have it in my mind to just dominate”

~page 40

“Diabetes is the one disease where you’re on call 24/7”

~page 48

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Welcome, readers, to the Spring 2011 edition of Sweat magazine. I hope you enjoy this issue and the great photos and articles contained in it. Every time a new issue comes out the content and appearance seems to be getting better and bet-ter. Thanks again to the students and staff at the Humber College journalism program for producing such a first class publication.

Congratulations to all of our medalists and participants in the winter semester championships and

a huge thank you for all of our hosts. The time and energy put into hosting any OCAA championship is very much appreciated. The work that goes on behind the scenes often goes unnoticed but is critical in making these events a success for all involved. I have heard from many players, coaches and fans that all of our championships are equal to or better than most national cham-pionships. I had the privilege to attend the 2010-2011 OCAA Men’s Basketball Championships in Sault Ste. Marie hosted by Algoma University. All games for this event were played at the Essar Centre (home of the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds). What an amazing venue for the Championships. The opening game between the Sheridan Bruins and Algoma Thunderbirds had a full crowd of over 4,000 people and I know it will be an experience that the players and coaches will never forget.

On another exciting note the OCAA will be inducting several new members at our Hall of Fame induction ceremony in early May at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto. This event

is the highlight of our Annual General Meeting every two years and we are looking forward to honouring former athletes, coaches and builders into this prestigious group.

In early December, at our athletic director’s meetings there were several exciting announcements. There are two new women’s basketball teams with the addition of Lambton College and Sault College. Indoor soccer will also move to a Division I and Division II format starting in the Winter of 2012. Women’s rugby has also increased to eight teams. We also welcomed a new member to our association with the addition of Wilfrid Laurier-Brantford. The OCAA continues to grow and we look forward to adding more members, teams and sports in the near future.

The OCAA is also excited to announce that it will be launch-ing a new and improved website in May 2011. We know that all fans, coaches and student athletes will enjoy the new look and we have made several significant changes to make the site more user-friendly and enjoyable. It will be found at the same address as our current site, www.ocaa.com

Lastly, I would like to thank all of the members of our cur-rent executive committee. Our two-year term together will come to an end at the beginning of May. It has been a productive and busy two years but we have worked well as a team and moved the OCAA forward in a positive direction. Thanks to John Fara-gher- VP Programs, Fred Batley- Past President, Marlene Ford- VP Finance & Awards, Michelle McConney- 1st VP CCAA, Ways & Means, Ed Mark- VP Campus Recreation, and Jim Bialek- VP Marketing for all of their time, effort and valuable insights and opinions.

Jay ShewfeltPresident, Ontario Colleges Athletics Association

The varsity athletes competing in the OCAA know better than most of the trials and tribulations that often accompany sport and the coping mechanisms used to alleviate mental, emotional and physical strain.

With that in mind, the Sweat team delved into the psychology of sport, from the initial stages of team development in Melissa Greer’s Lean on Me to the mindset of un-defeated squads in Mike Thomas’ A Perfect Distraction. In Mind Games, Dan Blackwell examines the effectiveness of motivational speaking in sport. Greg Burchell investigates the difficulties faced by former NCAA athletes when transitioning to OCAA competi-tion in All Fun & Games.

Additionally, we profile some of the OCAA’s elite athletes. Angelo Mazziotti sits down with record-breaking volleyball star Landis Doyle in Humber’s Great 8. Andrew Ardizzi tracks Durham forward Eric Smith’s evolution into a dominant force in men’s basketball in Lord Smith Rules the OCAA. Dan Ilika looks into the importance of size in the paint, profiling St. Lawrence-Kingston baller Mathieu Riendeau in Big Man On Campus.

To put on OCAA competitions requires an unwavering dedication on the part of the athletes, coaches, trainers, managers and volunteers that too often goes unnoticed. We at Sweat are privileged to bring their stories to light.

Remy Greer Editor-in-chief

Editor’s note

President’s note

Humber College Institute of Technology and Ad-vanced LearningSchool of Media Studies and Information Technology205 Humber College Blvd., Toronto, ON, M9W 5L7mediastudies.humber.ca

sweatmag.com7

Editor-in-chief

Remy Greer

Executive editor

Dan Ilika

Managing editor, words

Michael Raine

Assistant managing editor, words

Maegan McGregor

Managing editor, production

Kyle Gennings

Managing editor, online

Brad Lemaire

Assistant managing editor, online

Jordan Maxwell

Section editors

Andrew Ardizzi • Sam Carson

Melissa Greer • Khristopher Reardon

Alexa Tomaszewski

Copy editor

Dan Blackwell

Research/fact checkers

Matthew Lopes • Mike Thomas

Art director

Greg Burchell

Assistant art director

Colton De Gooyer

Online art director

Valerie Bennett

Photo editor

Angelo Mazziotti

Photographers/videographers

Royel Edwards • Matthew Ingram

Cover Photographer

Kadeisha Richards

Publisher

Carey French

Editorial advisor

Terri Arnott

OCAA advisory board

Josh Bell-Webster • Jim Bialek

Jim Flack • Doug Fox

Blair Webster

sweat In Brief:Nationals a success for OCAA badminton teams

OCAA teams had a very strong showing at the national championships at Mount Allison University from March 3-5, 2011.

Tim Chiu of George Brown won a bronze medal, defeating Garrett Babichuk of Thompson Rivers University in the bronze medal match.

Tracy Wong of Humber also had a strong showing, winning her own bronze over Samantha Wong of Concordia University in Alberta. Wong

went 4-3 in the tournament.St Clair’s mixed doubles team of Julie Schelle

and Vuong Tran took home a bronze medal as well, defeating Jenny Aronson and Bryan Cassels of Vancouver Island University.

Elsewhere, the George Brown men’s doubles team only managed two wins in seven matches, losing in the bronze medal match to Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.

Three schools add women’s rugby Three new teams are set to join the fold in

OCAA women’s rugby for the 2011 season.The Mohawk Mountaineers, Algonquin

Thunder and Conestoga Condors will join the five teams that played in the inaugural season of OCAA women’s rugby: the Seneca Sting, Humber Hawks, Loyalist Lancers, Fleming-Lindsay Auks

and St. Lawrence-Kingston Vikings.Mohawk and Conestoga already have teams

participating in men’s rugby, while Algonquin will also be adding a men’s rugby team in Fall 2011.

In November, Humber defeated Seneca 17-7 to win gold at the first ever OCAA women’s rugby provincial championships.

Wong named Player of the Year in women’s badmintonHumber’s Tracy Wong has been named the

2010-11 women’s OCAA player of the year, capping off a successful rookie year.

Wong went undefeated in women’s singles and doubles play, and reached the final in every one of her mixed doubles events.

She won the singles title at the OCAA West

Regional tournament, and won invitational tournaments at Fanshawe, Cambrian and at her home court this year.

Wong, who competed for Canada at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Signapore, was named an all-Canadian this season and has been nominated for CCAA women’s player of the year.

Chiu named Player of the Year in men’s badmintonGeorge Brown’s Tim Chiu has been named the

2011 CCAA men’s badminton player of the year. Chiu competes in men’s singles for the Huskies and was earlier named OCAA men’s badminton player of the year.

Chiu won a bronze medal at the badminton nationals in March to add to the silver he won at the CCAAs during his rookie season in 2009-2010.

George Brown won the men’s team and

overall team titles at the 2011 OCAA East regional championships.

The other nominees for men’s player of the year were Justin Barkhouse of Mount Allison University, Matt Chan of Mount Royal University, and Peter Huang of Capilano University.

Chiu received his award on March 2 at the CCAA all-Canadian banquet in Sackville, N.B.

Format change for indoor soccerOCAA men’s and women’s indoor soccer will

undergo a format change for the 2012 season, as a division system will be implemented next season.

Marlene Ford, senior convenor for men’s and women’s indoor soccer, says the format change was voted on at the OCAA directors meetings in December.

“(Division) 1 and…2 will play in a qualifying tournament against teams in their own

division in order to qualify for the provincial championships,” says Ford. “It makes all games in the qualifying tournament good, tough games against equal competition. Also, teams will get to see some new teams that they have never before played against.”

A similar format is used by men’s rugby in the OCAA. “We think it will work for indoor soccer as well,” says Ford.

Costello named 2011 CCAA coach of the year in men’s basketballAlgonquin’s Trevor Costello was named the

2011 CCAA men’s basketball coach of the year.Costello and the Thunder finished the season

with a 19-1 record and were ranked third nationally at the end of the regular season.

Having just completed his tenth year as Algonquin’s head coach, Costello boasts an impressive resumé. Costello has led the Thunder to appearances at three national championships,

capturing a silver medal in 2002 and a bronze in 2009. The coach has also won six OCAA East division championships.

Costello beat out fellow nominees Wayne Yearwood of Dawson College, Tony Bryce of Vancouver Island University, Mike Hansen of Lethbridge College and Rick Plato of Mount Saint Vincent University.

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In Brief:Men’s volleyball

The Humber Hawks men’s vol-leyball team made it two provincial titles in a row with a 3-0 victory over the Redeemer Royals in the final. Humber won the first two sets 25-18 and 25-19 and came from behind to take the third-set 26-24.

The Hawks snapped the Royals’ Cinderella run to the finals. Re-deemer finished the regular season just 8-10, but upset Loyalist, Sheri-dan and Mohawk on their way to an eventual silver medal.

Humber middle Matthew Isaacs racked up 12 points and seven kills in the final, while Aaron Vanderlugt led the Royals with 10 points and four kills.

Humber setter Derek Quinn was named most valuable player of the tournament.

Redeemer’s Christian Vander-geest, David Klomps and Humber’s Brendan Wong and Andre Brown were named to the tournament all-star team.

The Mohawk Mountaineers took out the Seneca Sting three sets to none in the bronze medal match.

Women’s volleyballThe Humber Hawks women’s vol-

leyball team made it four consecu-tive provincial titles with a straight-sets win over the rival Nipissing Lakers in the final.

The two schools have met in the last six championship finals, with Humber winning five of them.

The Hawks dominated the first two sets, 25-11 and 25-12, but were given all they could handle in the third set, holding on for a 25-21 win.

Humber’s Landis Doyle, the CCAA women’s volleyball player of the year, was named tournament MVP. Fellow Hawks Laura Bye, Nina Carino and May Strutt were honoured as tournament all-stars.

The Fanshawe Falcons earned the bronze medal after storming back from two sets down to beat the Mo-hawk Mountaineers 3-2.

BadmintonHumber defended the OCAA

overall team badminton title, with three of its athletes advancing to the national championships.

Tracy Wong capped her suc-cessful rookie year in the OCAA by beating Phoebe Lam of George Brown 21-5 and 21-3 to win the women’s singles title.

Wong has been named 2010-11 OCAA women’s player of the year and competed in last year’s Youth Olympics in Singapore.

Humber’s women’s doubles team of Renee Yip and Alyssa Woon took home gold as well, beating Boréal’s team of Valerie Breen and Jessica Dupuis in the finals in straight sets by identical 21-12 scores. Yip added another gold to her collection after winning provincial and national doubles titles last season.

Tim Chiu of George Brown also successfully defended his men’s sin-gles title with a 2-0 win over Hum-ber’s Chris Dupuis in the final.

George Brown also took home gold in men’s doubles, as the team of Dayvon Reid and Mohammed Usa-ma defeated Mohawk’s Chris Hong and Mohammed Nazimuddin.

The mixed doubles title went to St. Clair’s duo of Johnny Tron and Julie Schell who beat Humber’s Charlie Lay and Suzie Yan by scores of 21-16 and 23-21.

Men’s indoor soccerCentral West division rivals

squared off in the men’s indoor soccer final with Humber routing the defending champions from Sheridan 4-0.

The victory gave Humber its tenth gold medal in men’s indoor soccer, far and away the most in the OCAA.

Humber recovered from a 3-1 loss to Fleming (P) in its first game of the tournament to beat Fanshawe and George Brown and win pool A. Humber beat St. Lawrence (K) 3-1 in the semifinal to advance to the gold-medal match.

Sheridan won pool B with easy victories over St. Lawrence (K) and Redeemer and a 3-2 loss to Seneca. The Bruins beat George Brown 1-0 in overtime to book a spot in the final.

Humber defender Marcelo Cap-pozolo was named championship MVP and teammate Dave Ragno was named top goalkeeper.

St. Lawrence (K) beat George Brown 1-0 to take the Bronze medal.

Women’s Indoor SoccerThe Humber Hawks won their

fifth gold medal in women’s indoor soccer after a 2-1 victory over the Durham Lords in the final.

Durham won pool A with victories over Redeemer and Flem-ing and a 1-1 tie with Sheridan. Durham edged the defending champion Fanshawe 1-0 to earn a spot in the final.

Humber won pool B, with vic-tories over St. Lawrence (K), Fan-shawe and Seneca. In the semifinal, the Hawks dethroned the Fleming (P) Knights 3-1.

Humber forward Keyla Moreno was honoured as tournament MVP while Durham’s Morgan Kelly was named top goalkeeper.

In the bronze medal match, Fanshawe beat Fleming 3-0.

WHO GOT THE GOLD

Men’s basketballThe Humber Hawks men’s bas-

ketball team won its third straight OCAA title with a 66-59 win over the Sheridan Bruins in the gold medal game.

Humber won the OCAA West title with a 17-1 record this season and knocked off Seneca and Fan-shawe in the tournament to advance to the final. Sheridan defeated Al-goma and edged Algonquin 94-92 in double overtime in a hard-fought semifinal matchup.

Humber guard Michael Acheam-pong had 18 points in the final and was named the tournament MVP.

The Hawks have now won five of the last seven men’s titles, and became the first team in the last 15 years to win three consecutive pro-vincial championships.

Fanshawe beat Algonquin 66-56 to take home the bronze medal.

Women’s basketballThe Algonquin Thunder became

the first team in three-and-a-half years to beat the Sheridan Bruins in OCAA women’s basketball with a 59-46 win in the final.

Algonquin finished its own per-fect season with its 19th straight win. Thunder guard Jenny Allen scored 48 points in three games and was named tournament MVP, while teammates Sandre Bascoe and Trish Grey were honoured as tournament all-stars.

The upset snapped Sheridan’s 90-game winning streak against Ontario competition, dating back to October of 2007. The loss also halted Sheridan’s bid for its fourth consecutive provincial title.

The victory gave Algonquin its first provincial title in women’s basketball since 1972 and its third overall.

Compiled by Remy Greer and Matthew Ingram

sweatmag.com9

PhotographerKedar Pai

Fanshawe Falcons guard Jordan Dixon drives to the net against Sault Cougars forward

Will Hamilton, Feb. 12

s

Gallery

sweatmag.com10

PhotographerPaul E. Surette

Conestoga Condors left side Denise Clemmer (8) goes for the kill against two Nipissing Lakers

defenders, Oct. 30

s

PhotographerTony Golea

George Brown Huskies left side Sadio Matthews returns against the

Loyalist Lancers, Nov. 10

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DAN ILIKA

Looking up and down the OCAA men’s basketball standings at the end of the season, it might come as a surprise that St. Lawrence Vi-kings finished the year tied for second place in the East with a healthy 15-5 record.

The Kingston-based ballers don’t have a championship legacy; they don’t have a veteran-laden roster with playoff experience; and they don’t have themselves high on most schools’ radars. But what they do have is Mathieu Riendeau, a 6-foot-10 centre with the skills, drive and size to take the Vikings – and his game – to the next level.

Now in his third year with St. Lawrence, Riendeau, 24, is the veteran leader for the Vikings, both on and off the floor.

The Ottawa native leads the team statistically, putting up an impres-sive line of 18 points and 10 boards per contest, but perhaps more importantly, Riendeau brings experience to a team in need of just that.

“He’s our only fourth-year player on the team, everybody else is either a rookie or in second-year,” says Vikings coach Barry Smith. “He was with us when we went to the Ontario’s several years ago, the gold medal game, losing (by) a couple points to Fanshawe and coming home with a silver, which is the best showing St. Lawrence has had in a long time.”

Riendeau’s experience has translated to success on the court for the Vikings, who had a strong showing in the regular season and came close to tasting the OCAA championships in March.

With his size in the middle the Vikings have an anchor they can run plays through – and that gives them an upper-hand against much smaller competition in the college game.

“The OCAA is not noted for its height,” says Smith. “When you can pick a player of Mathieu’s size at 6-foot-10 he becomes a definite force in the middle.”

And the Vikings have played off what Riendeau brings in size alone, building a team that can take advantage of the mismatches he creates on a nightly basis.

“Teams are so focused on stopping him inside the paint that it certainly makes our two better three-point shooters have a lot more freedom out on the perimeter,” says Smith. “He has become aware that teams are going to try to double-team… to try and jam him inside the paint. So he finds what we call in our system the ‘window’, and who is in the window at that particular time, because if there’s two guys on him then there’s somebody open, and if he can find them then that person’s got to make that shot for us to be successful.”

And the big-man’s teammates know all too well what he does for their games.

“The fact is he’s so tall that a lot of (opposing) players worry about him,” says second-year Vikings guard Terence Thomas about Riendeau. “He creates a lot of problems for a lot of other teams, so they want to double him (and) that leaves players trying to slump off me…so I get a lot more attempts than in the past.”

And numbers don’t lie. In Thomas’ first year with the Vikings and the team’s first year without Riendeau, the Toronto native netted three long-balls in 13 games. With Riendeau back in the middle for the Vikings, Thomas drained 38 threes through 19 games this season.

“He’s probably one of the tallest if not the tallest…in the OCAA, so because of that there’s nobody else that can create double teams like he does,” says Thomas. “Without him I wouldn’t get that many threes.”

Riendeau has also gained confidence in his own shooting stroke ac-cording to Smith, and it shows in his stats.

After connecting on just one three-ball in 18 games during his first year with St. Lawrence, Riendeau has become more apt to step outside when the defence lags, dropping 20 threes in 20 games this season.

If there was one weakness to his game, though, Smith says it’s Rien-deau’s temperament and how it affects the team.

“It’s gotten somewhat better, it’s not at the point that I or any other coach would want to see,” says Smith of Riendeau’s frustrations during games. “He just doesn’t channel his frustrations in the best direction.

Big Man Campuson

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Instead of bearing down he’ll take it out on the referees, he might take it out on what I consider a cheap foul, a touchy foul. Then he knows I’m probably going to sit him for awhile and that gives him time to cool off, readjust and get back onto the floor.”

Riendeau agrees with Smith, and feels he needs to become more positive on the floor.

“I need to keep improving my criticism and my attitude towards my teammates,” says Riendeau. “Instead of yelling at them I need to be more like, ‘It’s okay, don’t worry about it, let’s get it back on D.’ I think that’s one of the things I need to improve on the most. And also keep (leading) by example and showing them what it takes, ‘cause I know, I’ve been there, I know what it takes.”

After spending two years at St. Lawrence, Riendeau cut his teeth last season in a backup role with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, and feels it helped humble him as both a player and a leader.

“When I went to Ottawa I wasn’t a starter, I was coming off the bench, so that was a first for me,” says Riendeau. “At first it was hard but then I came into my role as being a sixth man. I also learned a lot over the year…I learned how to be a better leader, (a) better player.”

Smith says he’s glad Riendeau spent the year with the Gee-Gees as opposed to another university, as it gave him a chance to learn behind veterans.

“I think it made him appreciate the minutes (he) gets on the floor,” says Smith of Riendeau’s time at the University of Ottawa. “A lot of other teams, if Mat had gone to them at the university level, I think he might have been a starter. I think the unfortunate thing about going to Ottawa U was they were loaded last year, and they were loaded with players that were in their fifth year and they deservedly … should have been starters ahead of Mathieu, so he had to do a little bit of learning.”

Now in his fourth year of eligibility, Riendeau only has one year left to compete at the collegiate level. And while he says he has thought about settling down into a “real job,” he also says he would like to continue to work on his game and try his hand at the professional ranks in Europe.

“If I went overseas I wouldn’t be a centre,” says Riendeau. “I would love to play on the wing.”

Smith agrees, as Riendeau’s slight size – despite his height Riendeau weighs in at 215-pounds – would require him to transition to a role as a wing player.

“If Mathieu was to play over in Europe at all their style of game might be suited a little bit better to him as a forward rather than a centre,” says Smith. “Their centres over there are traditionally big, wide bodies, and they want to do a lot of banging (down low). But they have 6-foot-10 kids over there that can step out and shoot the three, and Mathieu…[has] developed a very good perimeter shot.”

Regardless of where Riendeau ends up you can bank on the big man leading the charge both on and off the court.

The OCAA is not noted for its height. When you can pick a player of Mathieu’s size at 6-foot-10, he becomes a definite force in the middle.

Barry SmithCoach, St. Lawrence Vikings

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MindGames

Controlling stress with breathing exercises•Practice before a game by finding a quiet place away from distractions

•Take a deep breath and focus on getting your lungs as full as possible

•Breathe in for count of four seconds•Focus on expanding and contracting your diaphragm•Concentrate on the physical feeling of breathing Breathe out for a count of eight seconds•Try using imagery and imagine yourself in a calm place•Sometimes listening to calm music can also help

DAN BLACKWELL

Getting your brain buff and winning a mental marathon can be almost as important to an OCAA athlete’s game as hitting the gym or practising drills. But how can Ontario’s next star athlete win that cerebral champion-ship and pump up their psyche?

It was with this question in mind that Dr. Barbi Law was asked to speak at the 2010 OCAA volleyball all-star game at Canadore College. Law’s workshop, which focused on what she calls psychological skills training (PST), is just one example of the way the OCAA aims to hone the minds of their top athletes, using modern sports psychology, mental conditioning and motivational speaking.

“My job is to try and help athletes develop the tools that they need to handle the stress involved in sport and balancing sport with the rest of their lives,” says Law. “To give them some strategies to make sure that when they step on the court they’re 100 per cent prepared to play at their best level.”

SELF-TALKSo what are some of the PST techniques that Law says can help the next

great varsity athlete? Creating your own mantra, for one. “For some athletes they might find that having cue words or some self-talk that they can do with themselves is what’s most effective,” she says. “Self-talk is essentially having cue words or a key phrase you use, so it could be just a word, it could be a couple words, no more than three to five words. A short state-ment that really helps you do whatever it is you’re using it to do.”

Law says picking a personal word or phrase that has meaning to the ath-lete can have a noticeable impact on performance if it’s spoken at the right time. “So often athletes have a technique, so when you think about taking a shot you might use the word ‘follow through’ to remind you to follow through on your free throw.”

Despite sounding simple, self-talk works says Dr. Gordon Bloom, an associate professor of sports psychology at Montreal’s McGill University and mental-coach to some of Canada’s top Olympic athletes.

“There are a few benefits of it,” he says. “It gets your mind thinking in the right direction because self-talk always has to be positive. So if you’re telling your brain, ‘this is how something works’, it can be motivational. Or it can be instructional, and instructional is, you know, ‘stay low’, or ‘keep your head up – these are positive messages.” Bloom says that in addition to reinforcing the positive thoughts which keep your mind focused, self-talk has the additional benefit of keeping those self-defeating negative thoughts out.

For Canadian-raised Kelly Schumacher, a former CCAA, NCA, WNBA pro-basketball player and speaker at the 2011 CCAA All-Canadian awards banquet, self-talk can be as simple as repeating the things you’re good at in your head. “I try and stay on the confident side, like ‘I can do this, this and that, this is my athletic talent, I can jump this high, I can shoot the ball’,” she says. “I say things like that to myself to motivate myself.”

IMAGERYAnother effective technique Law says will get your brain fit and ready for

the game is creating an experience in your mind that draws from all your senses, a mind-body connection called imagery. “For some athletes they find using imagery, sometimes we call this visualization, is what works best for them,” she says. “Often athletes do use it in training to help them master different skills, to maybe build their confidence in different skills, to help them deal with stress or anxiety.”

Athletes can also use it during a game, Law says, whether it’s to develop specific skills or help prepare them for a big moment, like a volleyball serve or basketball free-throw. “As part of their pre-shot routine they might take a moment to imagine in their mind how they are going to execute their serve. What it feels like, really smooth, and then execute.”

Law stresses the reason the technique is called imagery rather than visualization is because it attempts to get athletes to imagine the entire experience in the mind, right down to the sights and smells. “Not just see-ing how they’re going to perform, but feeling kinesthetically in their body how it feels to execute the movement,” she says. “The more realistically they can make the whole experience in their mind the greater the likelihood that they are going to be able to execute it that way in the actual setting.”

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How does it work? Bloom says one of the ways he teaches athletes to use imagery is to bring their sports equipment into the process. “So the first thing they’re going to have to do is imagine themselves entering the dressing room, and hearing the usual people, and usually they say the same things, and I tell them to pickup your gloves and put them right by your nose, and smell them,” he says. “And they sort of get that sensation of the smelling, and when you sort of activate the senses the body is a little bit more suscep-tible to the messages you’re going to send it.”

Imagery is another mental tool that professional-baller Shumacher brings to her game. “Mental imagery is very important, as far as the basketball goes,” she says. “I use it before a game, usually the night before, or in the locker room, and just kind of imagine yourself doing the things that you’re going to do when you’re out on the floor. A lot of it is you set your goals, and then you imagine yourself attaining your goals. And that’s worked for me a lot in the past.”

COPING TECHNIQUESAn additional strategy both Dr. Law and Dr. Bloom advocate is teaching

athletes to regulate and cope with their stress responses. If it’s a high-pres-sure game, or that buzzer-beater shot Bloom suggests tuning your pre-game ritual to the nature of your sport.

“Some of it can be breathing exercises,” says Bloom. “Some of it can be not so much meditation but putting yourself in a state where you can relax. So if you’re a football player before a game you’re going to over-arouse yourself, at least if you’re a linebacker,” he says. “Or say you’re an archer, or say you’re a relief pitcher in baseball, you have to sort of bring your body to a very calm and relaxed state, so some of the ways we do that is teach-ing them just breathing exercises, and how to slow down your heart-rate.” Whether in-game or the night before, learning these exercises can give you that extra edge to get the job done (for more on some breathing exercises, see our side-bar.)

Law says the ultimate goal with all of these strategies is to help an athlete get into the “zone,” for example when a pitcher accomplishes a no-hitter, or a goalie maintains a shutout. “Often that gets referred to as being in a flow state, and it really is that point where everything comes together for you, where you’re extremely focused and not distracted,” says Law. “It seems that sort of state happens when athletes are confident, when they’re prepared, and it’s kind of our goal to get athletes at that point where they’re in the flow state every time they step on the field.”

KEEPING YOUR MIND ON THE RIGHT TRACKOnce athletes are focused, mentally conditioned and succeeding it

can often boil down to setting attainable goals early on to keep players motivated and mentally on-track. Dr. Beth McCharles, an expert in sports psychology and the current head of Ryerson’s Athletic Services, knows a thing or two about keeping a team on the winning path. As a Team Canada soccer player at the 2001 and 2003 FISU Summer Universidades, and former OUA coach of the year, McCharles says setting goals and sticking to them is important regardless of how well a team is doing.

“Concentrate on a pre-competition plan, or what are the things that allow you to be more consistent, and work on that during the year,” she says. “Keeping that winning streak is keeping your team to a level of what’s important, and that’s really maintaining the goals that you set at the begin-ning of the season.”

IF YOU CAN’T GET THINGS RIGHT?When a losing streak sets in McCharles says getting players motivated

and back into a winning mindset all boils down to taking baby steps to-wards regaining self-assurance.

“That’s when you do the little things, the small things to get those wins,” she says. “Understanding this is the process, this is what we need to do, we need to do those simple things perfectly…we need to transition to the back in soccer, or in hockey passing the puck forward,” she adds.

“Start at the basics and get your team and your individual confidence up, and then you can start doing the grandiose things, I call it cocky

confidence. It’s not being cocky and it’s not just regular confidence, it’s in between where it’s that feeling of winning, where it’s ‘of course I’m going to win’, and they don’t have that losing mentality.”

WHAT DOESN’T WORKFor McCharles it was a high school basketball coach that pushed all the

wrong buttons. “Anytime someone made a mistake they would get pulled,” says McCharles. “He would blame people, and he chose favorites – it af-fected a lot of young women’s confidence.”

Shane Bascoe, a former motivational speaker and current coach of the three-time OCAA champion Sheridan women’s basketball team, says a com-mon mistake some coaches make is talking about the other team. “It doesn’t work,” he says. “At the end of the day you can only control what you do.”

Bascoe instead emphasizes turning athletes’ focus inwards. “We prepare for other teams, but at the same time when you focus so much on the other teams you’re forgetting what you’re capable of, it’s more so about ourselves and less so about the other team.”

Perhaps the most common mistake made when motivating is the old cliché of screaming from the sidelines. Tom Hipsz, a motivational speaker, former University of Toronto and Montreal Alouettes defensive end, and current recreation and fitness co-ordinator for Sheridan College, says most athletes won’t respond to a coach who constantly yells at his play-ers. “Football is a bit of a rough sport and sometimes they can’t hear you if you’re talking very gently…but if you do it too often and don’t pick your moments then they tend to start tuning you out.”

Instead of talki ng (or screaming) down to players, Hipsz suggests empa-thy as a key means of motivating. “You can’t be their best friend, whether it’s teaching, motivational speaking or coaching, but empathy is one of the best qualities,” he says. “If you’re empathetic a lot comes from there, being able to put yourself in their shoes.”

FINDING THE RIGHT WORDSUltimately, as simple as it sounds, whether you’re a team captain, a coach

or a sports psychologist, getting athletes in the right mindset may boil down to mustering up a few choice words. “I’ll never forget playing at our first Ontario championship,” says Bascoe. “I said, ‘we’re eight minutes away from winning our first Ontario championship’. And when you look at everyone in their eyes, and you see the response back, you just know that no matter what any team has to do to try and beat you, you’re always going to overcome it. It was something that completely brought us to another level.”

Dr. Barbi Law

For

R 1. Set “SMART” goals: Specific, Measurable, Adjustable,

Realistic and Time-based.

2. Execute your plan: Create a plan for how you will

reach your goals. Knowing exactly what you want to

strive for each day/week/session will help you stay

focused on your goals.

3. Track your progress: Whether it is in a daily training

journal or by measuring progress towards specific

goals. Seeing improvement will help keep you motivated.

4. Be inspired: Find something that represents how you

want to feel when you train or compete and that

represents what you want to achieve. Keep it visible

so that it continues to inspire you. Your source of

inspiration can also be a phrase or a word you repeat

to yourself out loud or in your mind.

5. Play in the moment: Allow yourself to enjoy the sport

experience and celebrate the highlights.

SWEAT readers

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MELISSA GREER

With her heart pumping and palms sweating, the lanky Georgian Col-lege volleyball player looks down. She’s 40 feet in the air wobbling on a taut cable. She can hear the roar of voices below. It’s her teammates shouting words of encouragement.

The team is at Olympia Sports Camp in Muskoka, Ontario. It’s a trip the Georgian women’s volleyball team makes every other year at the beginning of the season in order to build a strong unit of new and younger players.

Roxanne McAneney, says the high ropes are difficult, especially with the amount of upper body strength required.

“But the whole team’s down there cheering for you and helping you stay positive to get through it,” says the Georgian volleyball player.

The team building activities at Olympia, such as the high ropes course, have helped several athletes conquer their fears, with help from some peer motivation and support.

“It’s a kind of bond other teams wouldn’t have,” says head coach Brad Graham.

Christine Haesler, co-ordinator of Orientation and Transition Programs at Humber College, says these types of leadership programs help partici-pants to better understand themselves. “It helps them learn how to work with others and how to impact their community as leaders,” says Haesler, who has a background in leadership development.

Haesler says team building initiatives and leadership development programs are a great way to develop those interpersonal skills critical to achieve success. “I think that developing self-awareness as a first step is very important when you learn how to work well with others.”

TEAM COHESIVENESSGeorgian’s women’s basketball team also finds value in visiting Olympia

Sports Camp, although they do not combine their visit with the women’s volleyball team. Graham says that’s because it’s a time they want the girls on the team to bond together, without any distractions.

Marnie Buchanan, head coach of the women’s basketball team, agrees. She says visiting Olympia Sports Camp is a great starting point for the team. “They’re building that team cohesiveness,” she says. “Basketball is a

team sport. It’s not one person on the floor; there (are) five of them on the floor that need to work as a unit.”

Sharon Butler, head coach of the George Brown women’s basketball team, took her team to the Toronto-based Camp Green Acres this season. She explains that Green Acres is a facility that works really well with all sorts of groups in terms of team building.

“The whole idea of working together, even just understanding each mem-ber and what they bring to the team is important,” she says.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENTThe Georgian women’s volleyball team’s involvement with Olympia

Sports Camp doesn’t stop at merely visiting the camp as participants. Sev-eral girls on the team also return each summer to help coach and run clinics for young campers interested in the sport. Graham says the girls inevitably take what they learn as a coach in the summer and apply it toward a leader-ship role on the team during the season.

The team has also started a type of mentorship with a Big Sister-Little Sister program, where one of the veterans is assigned to one of the rookies for the season.

“Basically, the concept is to help them out with any issue inside or outside and being someone they can rely on,” says McAneney, who, as a third-year player on the team, is a Big Sister to one of her teammates. “It makes everyone feel more comfortable with each other and we’re there for positive reinforcement.”

Graham implemented the program to ensure a smooth transition for rookie players joining the team. “It’s good for them to have that support system and it works really well,” he says.

For Georgian basketball players Summer Bly and Dana Marley, being a team captain has vastly improved their leadership skills.

Last season, Bly was injured and couldn’t play, but was able to take on a coaching perspective instead.

Marley says Bly’s injury was hard on the team because she’s always been a major leader and strong player. Now, Marley says, Bly uses a coach-ing perspective, “and helped some of us, like myself, really step into that leadership role and realize that this is a team sport and can’t just fall on one person’s shoulders.”

“It made us a lot stronger for this year,” says Marley.

on MeLeanVarsity athletes explain the importance of team building and how leadership skills benefit them both on and off the court

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PERSONAL GROWTHPlaying on a sports team provides players with more than a couple

of medals and some good memories. The athletes develop a great work ethic, learning that hard work pays off, they develop a confidence to carry them through life, and they learn to co-operate and communicate with each other.

“When you go out into a job, you don’t necessarily know everybody that you’re working with. So it’s good to see how everybody’s strengths can work together as one unit even though you’re coming from different back-grounds,” says Buchanan.

Marley, a fifth-year player on Georgian’s women’s basketball team, has a similar take on it.

She says being part of a team is a great experience in dealing with all dif-ferent types of personalities.

Marley also emphasized the importance of communication. “Anything that you say can come off a thousand different ways, so learning how to say it and when to say it is huge. You really mature and it shows you how to deal with different situations.”

In addition to becoming a leader on her team and providing support for her teammates McAneney has grown a great deal personally. She reflects on the past three years she’s spent on the team, saying, “volleyball gives me a lot of self-confidence and positivity dealing with issues. It gives me that working hard attitude.”

“Also time management!” she adds. “When I’m playing I really schedule my time better.”

The types of leadership retreats George Brown and Georgian College have participated in not only serve to further develop the players’ self-con-fidence, leadership skills and overall game, but also foster relationships that will outlast any team’s winning streak.

“It allows us to get to know each other a lot better and we become better friends outside of volleyball. My team is basically like all my best friends; some of them are like my sisters,” McAneney reflects. “Just be-ing able to build a friendship with someone, and be working hard with someone, will always make me strive to do better at something, whether it’s volleyball or working.”

As for those girls attempting to conquer their fear of heights – Buchanan says, “Give it 110 per cent and see what you’re able to do. By listening to the encouragement from their team and persevering through, they were able to conquer the fears that they have.”

The whole team’s down there cheering for you and helping you stay

positive to get through itRoxanne McAneney

Middle, Georgian Grizzlies

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MIKE THOMAS

No team ever intends to lose a game, but perfect seasons are rare. Since 1970 the only two professional football teams undefeated in the regular season are the ‘72 Miami Dolphins and the ‘07 New England Patriots. In the OCAA a handful of teams go undefeated every year, and although it’s less rare, the feat is no less spectacular.

“I don’t think about the perfect record,” says Sheridan women’s basketball coach Shane Bascoe, whose team recently wrapped up its third straight undefeated season. “If it happens it happens, but that’s not the goal going into the season.” Bascoe, having felt the triumph of perfection before, hasn’t compromised his overall goal of leading his team to championships. Bascoe says he figures it takes a 9-3 record to put a team into contention in their league, and being in contention at the end of the season is what he aims for.

Caity Wright played forward and guard for two perfect seasons under Bascoe at Sheridan,

and shares her former coach’s views. “We set our goals each year,” says Wright. “That was to win the division, then win Ontario champion-ships and if we did that it would be our goal to win nationals.”

The difference between a championship and a milestone is something Alex Paris and the Mohawk men’s rugby team learned this past season. The team was a perfect 7-0 during the regular season but was upset by Humber in the championship game. “It goes without saying,” says Paris, who acknowledged he and his team would have preferred a championship. “The regular season has no bearing on what happens in the post season and we lost to a team that wanted to win more than we did.”

Playing with a perfect record can often put a team in a position where the pressure weighs so heavily that their performance suffers. “I wish we had lost once or twice during the year so we would have focused more on winning the championship and I think a lot of senior guys recognize that,” says Paris. “In the finals it defi-

nitely [added a distraction] and our team had the mentality that we were invincible.”

Sam Dempster, coach of the Durham Lords men’s baseball team, had a perfect 16-0 record in the 2010 season and admits that along with the excitement of reaching a perfect season comes pressure to perform. “Once you’re undefeated the other teams want to be the one to end the streak for you,” says Dempster. “We’d be the same way if another team was undefeated – trying to put a dent in their record.”

Coming off a perfect season Garth Gittens, coach of Algonquin’s women’s soccer team, says his team may have felt pressure from athletes on the school’s other varsity teams who hyped up his team’s pursuit of perfection.

“We have a good relationship with the other teams in our school so we get a little bit of pressure within the college itself,” says Gittens. Algonquin’s women’s basketball team went un-defeated and won the provincial title while their men’s basketball team suffered its first loss late in the season.

A PerfectDistraction

What an undefeated season really means to the OCAA’s top teams

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“Another thing is the pressure that comes from being successful in past seasons,” says Gittens. “Every single year we have a half new team. This year, six or seven of our starters were first-year players.”

This is something Bascoe sees plenty of as he coaches in his third consecutive undefeated season. “They feel pressure, not to go undefeated, but pressure to continue the winning tradition at Sheridan,” says Bascoe.

Sydney Midwood was in her first season when the Algonquin women’s soccer team went undefeated and says she and her teammates tried not to be distracted by the feat they were approaching. “Our coaches were very passionate about our team and they told us not to let it get to our heads.”

Once the season was over she says the perfect record took on a whole new meaning to the team, since they were able to enjoy it. “It definitely meant a lot. None of us wanted to lose a game and it meant a lot to both the players and coaches.”

Both athletes and coaches in the OCAA are quick to turn away any notion that the team would take any serious risks to obtain perfection, such as putting potential player injuries on the line or possibly jeopardizing future wins.

“If someone was injured (our coaches) defi-nitely would’ve wanted to rest them for more important games,” says Midwood.

The level of competition in certain leagues can sometimes have an impact on what the perfect season might mean.

Gittens says parity in the OCAA might have a hand in some teams not putting as much emphasis on the undefeated season. “The size of the school probably dictates how strong some of the programs are,” says Gittens, suggesting his perfect season doesn’t near the importance of a provincial or national championship. “Some of the small schools don’t have enough bodies, so playing weaker teams takes away a bit of the shine of an undefeated season.”

Wright admitted that the perfect record was something that her team looked back on with

pride at the end of each season. “We all appreci-ate it just the same,” says Wright. “When it does happen you all look at each other and realize what you’ve accomplished and then it’s on to the next one.”

While Sheridan’s women’s basketball team’s streak of perfection makes it a team to envy throughout the OCAA there are several other teams who’ve gone undefeated in the last three years (see Flawless Records). Those around the teams that have gone undefeated say a perfect record is something to be proud of, but not necessarily something to aim for.

“Our focus is playing well on the day of the game,” says Gittens. “If we would lose two games and win provincials, I’d rather have that than a perfect season. We try to play to the best of (our)ability on that given day.”

“It would be nice (to be undefeated) every year,” says Dempster. “But it just comes around every once in a while. We just have to approach every game as another game and try not to make a big deal about it.”

DistractionThe Mohawk Mountaineers

were on the verge of a perfect season with an 8-0-0 record

heading into the finals against the Humber Hawks,

who were sitting 5-3-0.The Mountaineers lost the

game and the championship.

Courtesy Tania Garshowitz

Flawless Records2010-2011

Algonquin Women’s Basketball 16-0Algonquin Women’s Soccer 8-0

Durham Men’s Baseball 16-0Durham Women’s Fastball 10-0Humber Women’s Rugby 4-0

Mohawk Men’s Rugby 7-0Sheridan Women’s Basketball 14-0

2009-2010Humber Women’s Soccer 12-0

Loyalist Men’s Rugby 6-0Sheridan Women’s Basketball 14-0

2008-2009Durham Women’s Fastball 12-0

Humber Women’s Volleyball 20-0Seneca Women’s Basketball 14-0

Sheridan Women’s Basketball 14-0St. Lawrence Men’s Rugby 6-0

90 Consecutive wins in the OCAA

Their last loss was on

Oct. 31, 2007

to the Fanshawe Falcons

Sheridan Bruins Women’s BasketballA lesson in perfection…

100-2 over the last

f o u rseasons

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KHRISTOPHER REARDON

Andy Au is at the ready. A slim arm flies up and his racket powers forward. The squeak of sneakers is followed by a dash, smash or parry. The shuttlecock flies over the net, sometimes careening in a downward smash, sending a meteor spiraling into the opposite court. A point is gained. His slender legs scamper across the court to retrieve and reflect every blow.

Au stands among the champions of the court. In his eyes a gleeful innocence, a playful gaze. He’s doing what he loves and what he loves is badminton.

“In my team we practice and I help out with the coach and stuff and I help out the team and cheer with them,” says Au, who plays for the Humber Hawks badminton team. “I play in the tourna-ments, too.”

Au sits beside a facilitator as they go over the questions. He gets a little confused at times. He’s not like most students. Au has a develop-mental disability. Sometimes he has difficulty speaking, and sometimes he misunderstands. But that doesn’t stop Au.

“It was easy to sign up,” says Au. “I like to play sports. That’s why I joined the team, to play badminton.”

Michael Kopinak, assistant coach for the Humber Hawks badminton team, sees Au with different eyes than most people. He’s been there since Au first appeared in the gymnasium looking to join the team.

“I come from a student service background so I consider myself to be a fairly open person, but at the end of the day you don’t see too many CICE (Community Integration through Cooperative Education) students in a varsity sport,” says Kopinak. “It’s a learning process for myself as well.”

But Au’s differences haven’t slowed him down on the court, and Kopinak wants people to know that no special arrangements were made for Au’s inclusion on the team.

“We didn’t take him because he was a CICE student, we took him because he could play,” he says. “And you know what? It was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Overcoming Adversity

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Kopinak says Au’s importance to the team can’t be underestimated, as he’s become a rallying point for fellow players.

“He’s the type of person who everyone has just kind of taken to,” says Kopinak. “So when he’s not there you know it. But when he is there he’s cheering people on, he’s contributing and he’s a heck of a player. At the end of the day he just wants to be a part of a varsity sport and as far as I’m concerned he’s an integral part of it.”

This year Au didn’t make Humber’s top-five because of the number of high-caliber players on the squad, but Kopinak says that does not dimin-ish his ability.

“On most other teams Andy would be a standout,” says Kopinak. “It’s not always about being the best player either, it’s also about heart and commitment and I would say Andy has more heart and commitment than the rest of the team put together. As far as I am concerned the whole team could learn a lot from him.”

Au is always the first to arrive and the last to leave, and when he’s practicing the focus in his eyes never diminishes. His passion shines through every swing of the racket as he plays. Watching closely, fans might even catch a glimpse of a smile as he sends another shuttle-cock into the next court.

He couldn’t have gotten here without the help of CICE program, which put Au in touch

with badminton on campus.The CICE program places students with

school programs that have been modified to meet their individual learning needs. So students with developmental differences can be a part of the college campus lifestyle and education system.

Au has taken advantage of the program to increase personal well-being and fitness to keep himself in prime condition for his favourite sport.

People within the CICE program are proud of Andy’s accomplishments and how he’s repre-sented the program in varsity sports.

“Even just when it comes to team spirit and having a positive attitude, I think it is also great for the team members to be aware that people of all types of abilities are capable of being a part of the team,” says Jennifer Ricketts, integration facilitator for CICE at Humber. “Everyone has different talents and something they can offer, and I think that’s been great.”

Au isn’t the only CICE student doing fitness-related courses. Ricketts says a couple of the more popular courses in the program are health and wellness and group exercise.

“One area where they definitely get encour-agement and guidance from us is when we do one of the CICE courses called recreational activities,” says Ricketts. “In that course the goal is to encourage students to participate in the Humber College community and get involved in activities.”

CICE has built a connection to the athlet-ics department in order to facilitate healthier lifestyle choices through exercise.

“We really do value the relationship that we’ve built with the athletic community and the fitness and health promotion and it’s definitely been beneficial for our students,” says Ricketts.

The students are consulted about what they would like to do in the athletic centre, where many help out either voluntarily or as part of a placement.

“It’s usually just once a week for a couple of hours but it’s still just being a part of the Humber community,” says Ricketts. “It’s to help them to begin to develop their job skills and learn about being professional and being a part of a team.”

Au is a huge part of Humber’s badminton team, proving the success of integrating stu-dents with learning differences into the college’s recreational activities.

On the badminton court as the spotlight shines, Au hears his number and name booming from the speakers as he takes his place. He stands a couple feet taller in that place, a bigger person than most.

The crowd sees him, watching quietly as the first serve goes up, all eyes on him.

Though, if you ask Au, it’s not the attention he craves. And people peering at him from the stands are simply wall covering. “I just focus on my game,” he says.

–Andy Au

I just focus on my game

Dreamstime.com

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ALL FUN GAMES

&

It was supposed to be the dream – going down to the United States to play soccer in the NCAA on a big scholarship. It was the next step in her soccer career – at least that’s what her friends, coaches and family told her. But when Joanna Alexopulos de-cided to go play for the University of Memphis on a US$90,000 scholarship she just hoped it would get her heart back into the game she used to love. ¶ The lure of the NCAA is obvious. From its football stadiums that rival and even surpass those of NFL teams to the big budgets of the schools and the celebrity status of the players on cam-pus, the NCAA is a hotbed for future superstars. ¶ “Anybody who takes any sport seri-ously, who wants to proceed through the education route, obviously the U.S. is num-ber one,” says David Lang, who came to the Durham Lords golf team last year after playing two years of varsity at Potomac State College in West Virginia. ¶ Alexopulos didn’t rediscover her passion for soccer. If anything, going south had just the opposite effect. Though she was getting 20 minutes a game – which is high for a freshman – be-ing yelled at by her coaches and knowing that if she made one wrong move she could be benched for the next game was too much stress for her. After finishing her first year she came back to Ontario.

GREG BURCHELL

For students who went South to play in the NCAA, returning to Ontario and playing in the OCAA has given new legs to their athletics career

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ALL FUN GAMES

“I would be on the field staring at the clock. That’s not a normal reac-tion for me. I’m somebody who wants minutes, I want to play all the time,” she says.

She enrolled at Humber College, and with the encouragement of her friends, began to play for the Humber Hawks in the OCAA. Four years later her tenure as captain has ended and Humber has retired her number.

It would be easy to expect the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association to be a big step down. After all, the NCAA is an organization of over 1,200 schools and has an annual budget of over $700-million, compared to the CCAA (the OCAA’s governing body) which has just 110 schools and an annual budget of just under $1-million.

But while the OCAA doesn’t quite stack up to the NCAA when it comes to size and financial capabilities, players like Alexopulos who have made the transition to playing varsity sports in Ontario colleges agree that playing in the OCAA has been a refreshing change.

WHY THEY CAME BACKKristine Miles was recruited by Alabama A&M as a pitcher for its Lady

Bulldogs softball team and played all four years in varsity sports. When she finished her four-year degree in physical education she came back to On-tario, and while she waited for the Ontario College of Teachers to evaluate her education and certify her to teach in Canada she decided to go back to school for a year so she could continue to play softball.

She reconnected with her coach from before university, Jim Niemish, who is currently coaching the Durham Lords women’s fastball, and enrolled at Durham in 911 emergency and call centre communications.

While Miles finished her education and played all four years of her time at Alabama A&M, Niemish says he’s seen many players in his 22 years of coaching come back because they weren’t happy playing in the NCAA.

“For some it doesn’t work out. They last a year, a year-and-a-half and whether it’s due to homesickness or the program or they just can’t cut it they come home and they come to the OCAA, which is a little more laid-back for them and they’re very successful,” he says.

In the NCAA coaching is a career. Not so in the OCAA, where it’s mostly part-time jobs and coaches make time around their careers to work with the athletes. It is surprising that Alexopulos says it was her coaches that were the most detrimental to her game, causing her to play below her level.

“That’s their full-time job – they have to take it seriously and invest a lot in it and I’m sure that’s why they act the way they do,” she says. “That type of thing should drive you to push yourself harder but I just didn’t care.”

Lang says he quickly realized that while the competition was what he was looking for, the education wasn’t (see Athletes or Academics?). He also wasn’t getting much support from his team, which he says was divided along the 49th parallel.

“When I was in the U.S. there were four of us from Canada, so we stuck together. As ridiculous as it might sound, (they didn’t like that we took) a spot away from one of their buddies who was trying out for the team.”

WHAT THEY GAINEDWhether the athletes spent four years or one in the NCAA, they all say

they brought something back with them to the OCAA that they couldn’t have gained if they had never experienced playing in the big leagues.

Lang, Miles and Alexopulos all learned how to keep calm and trust in themselves under the pressure and stress of competing at the highest col-legiate level, as well as keeping their school work in check.

“When you’re on the green on the final day and you’re putting for a national championship there’s no other feeling,” says Lang. “You can’t just draw that up.”

More than that, Niemish says all the players he’s seen who have come from any university system have had two traits in common: maturity and the confidence that comes along with it. Athletes with the experience of playing in a more intense system and the knowledge of what it takes to be better athletes give OCAA programs stability, says Niemish.

Although Niemish refuses to put more responsibility on players from the university systems – whether it be the NCAA or the Canadian Interuni-versity Sport organization – those players have often become the leaders of their respective teams, even if they don’t all carry the title.

“I’ve played in some of the biggest tournaments in amateur golf in the United States and bringing that experience and that level of competition back here to our team, [my coach] expects me to lead by example and help the guys out who are just starting,” says Lang.

THE OCAA EXPERIENCEAll three athletes agree that when they came back to Ontario they could

breathe easier and rediscover what they were missing from the sports they grew up loving. Part of that came from not feeling like they were part of the business, but just playing the game with their team.

“When I was playing in Memphis, I don’t even think I played that well. It wasn’t who I usually was when I was playing,” says Alexopulos. “We would just go play pickup for fun and I would play like I used to play – scoring goals, doing tricks – and my friends would ask why I couldn’t do that on the team and I just wouldn’t be able to perform that way with that type of pressure.”

Having the burden of financial responsibility lifted from their shoul-ders, Miles and Alexopulos both say playing with freedom allows them to be better athletes. They could once again say they were having fun when they played.

“I’m a little more laid back, I don’t have to worry about playing to keep my scholarship like I did down south. It’s all for fun up here,” says Miles. “When you have fun when you play you do even better.”

And Alexopulos once again loves the game she’s played her entire life.“I get that nervous butterfly feeling because I want to play, not that ner-

vous butterfly feeling like ‘oh my God what if I get put on today.’”

ATHLETES OR ACADEMICS?

“Here, we want to put a good product on the field, but we also want to see our student athletes graduate.” ~ Jim Niemish

When it came to studying and schoolwork in the NCAA, one thing was very clear to the athletes – when you’re in the NCAA, you’re an athlete going to school, not a student playing sports, and NCAA schools do everything they can to make sure the athletes get through their academic responsibilities unscathed. At Alabama A&M, athletes are given access to the Academic Enhancement Centre, where they have their own study hall, personal tutors and a private computer lab.

“It really helped to develop good study habits,” says Miles. “It made me realize how much time I need to set aside to study.”

Despite these privileges, the academic experience south of the border just wasn’t cutting it for a variety of reasons.

Alexopulos found the prioritization of sport jarring. “Down there it goes sport first, then school. Your classes are scheduled around your games. That didn’t sit well with me.” Having always put her school first, this was just one of the reasons that pushed her away from the NCAA.

Miles shares a similar sentiment – there just wasn’t enough time for school. “Down south it was pretty much you got up, you did practice in the morning, you did class all day, and sometimes you’d have practice in the afternoon on top of all that, and you had to fit your eight hours of study hall in on top of all that.” Here the coaches make sure their students are given the time to get their school work done.

“After going through high school here in Canada and then going down to the U.S. I found the university education system is very similar to our high school system. I wasn’t learning much – it was like I was backtracking.” says Lang. Enrolled in his first year of a business diploma, the work is more stimulating and the smaller class sizes means he’s closer with his teachers.

“Being away as much as I am in the golf season where I miss the first five or six weeks, if you do miss something the teachers and professors are there to help you out.”

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ANGELO MAZZIOTTI

Landis Doyle awoke on January 26 with butterflies in her stomach. This day was not like any other she experienced before; on this day her life could potentially change forever.

“I definitely woke up a little nervous that day,” says Doyle. “I knew there would be a lot of people there and they had a lot of stuff planned for me but I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The unknown was a little bit scary.”

That evening, Landis took the floor with the rest of her Humber women’s volleyball teammates and etched her name in the history books forever.

The opponents waiting on the floor were the Conestoga Condors, a rebuilding team at the opposite end of the OCAA rankings.

Stepping onto the court Landis had one goal in mind. “I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible,” says Doyle with a

smile. “I definitely didn’t want it hanging over our heads all night. I knew if it didn’t happen it would just be more focus on us and being in the spot-light is not really my ideal situation.”

Early in the second set Landis spiked her 1,036th point past a group of Condors defenders and was subsequently mobbed by her teammates. A smiling Doyle had just become the OCAA all-time leading scorer.

Landis is always one to praise teammates and coaches and says they have been instrumental in her success this year.

“The girls and the coaches have been great to me all year,” says Doyle. “After I broke the record a few of the girls came up to me and told me they didn’t want to talk to me about it because they didn’t want to jinx me but they were all excited and wanted to see it happen.”

She says the team was always ready to poke fun about her new found “star status.”

“The week leading up to the record, and even for a while afterwards, my teammates and coaches would come up to me and point, pretend to have cameras and ask for my autograph,” joked Doyle. “They have been really good at keeping it loose and fun around here.”

However, one of Landis’ coaches says all joking aside, when they get on the court it’s all business.

“At the beginning of the year we knew she was quickly approaching the record,” says assistant coach Dean Wylie. “We sat down and asked Landis how we should approach this and she told us to just coach her as usual.”

Superstitions are a very big part of the sporting landscape. Nobody talks to a pitcher during a bid for a perfect game, and goalies put their pads on the same exact way the night after a shootout victory. Wylie knows all about these superstitions and says the team tries not to take part.

“Everyone supports everyone, it’s a total team effort.”Wylie says although he can’t talk for Landis, he knew she would be the

first one to praise her teammates. “Landis has an unheard of kill percentage,” says Wylie. “But she says she

Humber’sGreat

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The 2010-2011 season belonged to Landis Doyle as she shattered

records and dominated the league

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just kills the ball. It takes two other people to get it to her and she never receives the lion’s share of the sets.”

All the attention in the athletics centre that evening came as a surprise to Doyle but her mother, present to watch her daughter break the record, welcomed the accolades and held back tears.

“I really can’t put into words how excited we all are,” says Landis’ mother, Tiiu Kask. “There is definitely no one more deserving of this. (She) is such a hard worker and we always knew she could do it.”

Calling Landis just a hard worker may be a slight understatement. Her CV boasts many accomplishments, including being named an all-Canadian in 2008-09, helping her team to four-straight OCAA championships and taking on a full course load in graphic design at Humber’s Lakeshore Campus.

With the 2010-11 season being Landis’ last year of eligibility, she remains focused on the task of another OCAA championship, but also can’t help but wonder what life without volleyball will be like.

“I have one more year of school left and it will definitely be a lot easier without having to worry about volleyball,” says Doyle. “I’ll have a lot more time on my hands but I want to focus directly on my school work.”

Landis says she is considering playing abroad in Europe after her college career comes to an end.

“The team all went to Amsterdam over the Christmas break and the coaches met with pro-scouts. I know I was on a list of names talked about, but right now I want to just focus on school,” says Doyle.

On February 9, 2011, Landis Doyle received an honour that only a select few OCAA athletes can boast. She watched her number 8 jersey be retired and raised to the rafters of the Humber athletic centre. A mark of distinction she says she will always keep near to her heart and hold in the highest regard.

“I found out about the jersey retirement a few months before it actually happened but I had to keep it a secret because (Humber) was still putting the finishing touches on it,” says Doyle. “Keeping that secret was very hard. It was very flattering. Only a few people have had the honour and it left me speechless.”

Angelo Mazziotti

A Monster YearCCAA• All-Canadian (2nd time)

• Featured Athlete of the Week

• Player of the Year

• Academic All-Canadian

• First-Team All-Star

OCAA• Championship (4th consecutive year)

• Championship MVP

• Player of the Year (2nd time)

• First Team All-Star (2nd time)

• Set all-time OCAA points record

• Set all-time OCAA service aces record

• Moved to second in all-time kills and stuff blocks

Honours• Number 8 retired and inducted into

the Humber Athletics Hall of Fame

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The

OCAA football makes its long-heralded return

to the promised land

GridironGospel

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JORDAN MAXWELL

In many parts of Texas, six-man football is not just a game – it’s a reli-gion, a way of life. Two times a week, sermons are held: once at the church in front of the Almighty God, and once on the rugged gridiron, where 12 youthful and physical men get ready to knock the snot out of each other. On Friday nights in good ol’ Texas the bishops, followers, doubters and other members of the choir pile onto the wooden bleachers, sit in lawn chairs and squat on pieces of scrap to watch the evening service – football.

The stands attract a crowd of people who all know your name, where you sleep and what your momma does for a living. Atrocious losses can get you killed ‘round these parts. Yep, down in the Lone Star State, teamwork, disci-pline, and hard work for an essential cause must take you to heavenly wins in this hellacious sport. And it’s for this reason that Jim Flack, Sheridan’s athletic director, and former CFL player Tom Hipsz, plan on bringing eight-man football back to the OCAA as soon as Fall 2012.

“We shorten the field in width and length but there’s less guys out there so it creates more space and it’s really exciting,” says Hipsz. “There’s such a history of football in Canada and real culture but we don’t have a lot of opportunity for young men in high school to play past that, especially with the col-legiate and athletic-academic model.”

During the 1970s the Ontario College Football League (OCFL) was trying to establish itself as a competitive col-legiate league. Back in those days there were four teams: the Seneca Braves, Humber Hawks, Sheridan Bruins and Algonquin Caats.

Over the years more college teams began to join the league only to fall out a few years later in most cases. You see, while Texans treat the game like a holy baptism, some college teams in the ‘70s were a bit more secular and atheistic in their approach; the dedication, the grit, the passion – lost in the secular movement.

In 1973 Humber’s football program dropped out of the league for a number of heretical reasons: players both detested and refused to practice; inadequate financing left teams unable to travel; organizing sched-ules became too time-consuming for ad-ministrators; and some folks weren’t willing to make the sacrifice. One team, however, stepped up to deliver without fail.

Led by Bernie Custis, a legendary Ca-nadian Football Hall of Fame player and coach, the Sheridan Bruins took over the football league, winning five consecutive titles before being dethroned at the hands of Montreal’s Vanier College. The changing of the guard led to the deterioration of the OCAA football league in the 1980s.

Teams began to flee in search of better competition, leaving folks no choice but to stop coming to the grounds to watch.

Now, more than 30 years later, Hipsz says that times have changed and football culture is as alive and well in Ontario as it is in a place like Saskatchewan, which ostensibly has the most faithful fans in Canada. Some fans come from eight to 10 hours away to watch, he says. The lessons he learned from playing football as a youth are something that can translate to players in their professional lives, Hipsz says.

After high school Hipsz ventured to Western Kentucky on a full scholarship, where he received his training from one of the greatest coaches in the game – leg-endary Jack Harbaugh. Hipsz describes Harbaugh, who is the father of NFL head coaches Jim and John Harbaugh, as a great coach. However the ultra-

hard-line and republican views of Kentucky were a bit too much for him to stomach.

“I really didn’t like living in Kentucky society overall. I thought interra-cial relations were very backwards,” he says. “Maybe now I would have tried to battle that a little more … to convince everyone that’s not the way you should be thinking. Still, I made a commitment to myself that I would stay for the rest of the year before I made my decision to leave.”

When Hipsz returned to Canada he remembered the name Bob Laycoe, a head coach at the University of Toronto. Hipsz recalled a conversation he had with Laycoe before he left for Kentucky that ultimately swayed him into U of T’s football program after they had failed to recruit him the first time around.

“He said, ‘I am happy you got your scholarship, but if things don’t work out then I would love you to think of us.’ I remembered that he was very good about it and I said, ‘Okay, that’s the guy I want to play for.’” Hipsz continues, “(Laycoe) wasn’t a spoiled brat, which honestly, even

Photos courtesy Tom

Hipsz

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though they were adult coaches some just seem like spoiled little kids who were just upset that they didn’t get what they wanted,” Hipsz recalls. “Coach Laycoe was a man of integrity. He never took shortcuts and I’m very happy to have gone and played for him.”

The priceless lessons Hipsz learned at U of T translated into a success-ful six-year career in the CFL, where he played for the Montreal Alouettes, Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Nevertheless, it was the lessons he learned off the field that were key to his success. Hipsz says the ability to juggle being a devout football player and a dedicated student taught him time management skills, which became critical to his success as a student.

“The whole dumb jock stereotype for all athletes is usually wrong because these students work a part-time job, take on a full-course load and (take) 20-30 hours a week to train so if that’s not time management then I don’t know what is,” he says.

The dedication, passion, focus, time-management skills and teamwork are all the more valuable now as Flack and Hipz propose to bring eight-man football to the Ontario collegiate level. With a roster of 23 men, the daunt-ing cost of building football in the OCAA has purportedly been addressed.

While most OCAA schools are on a tight budget due to the list of sports to which they already dole out thousands of dollars, the total cost to each school in the first year of operation is expected to be just under $38,000 – $21,370 for equipment, $11,000 for coaching, $4,000 for tape and $1,500 for home game costs. Not only would this be the cheapest OCAA sport cur-rently in practice but according to Hipsz, the budget for a full season would drop to just $26,500 in the second year.

Moreover, this would be the first budget-restricted varsity sport in the OCAA, meaning that teams would have to adhere to these figures and wouldn’t be permitted to spend more than what’s allotted for the sake of fairness. Teams would have to submit the year-end budgets and receipts to a senior convenor as proof to bolster the idea of fair competition against smaller schools with less wealth, and would apply to all costs, except travel.

Therein lies the foundation of Sheridan’s quest to add this sport back into the lives of players and fans alike. But what seems to be escaping the minds of many, according to Hipsz, is the benefit leagues and sports like OCAA and football could have on hundreds of young men across Ontario.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of opportunity for kids coming out of high school,” says Hipsz. “We have some degree programs that are better than what universities offer, and we also have a fair bit of athletes in cases where the guy isn’t ready for university right out of high school. When you’re between the ages of 18-22 you have a lot of excess energy and it’s good to focus it … In football, you’re building teamwork; you’re building discipline and the value of hard work for a worthy cause. If you don’t have these things, like community centers in the community, then I think you’re going to have more cars broken into and things like that. If kids are active they do better in school and there all are kinds of studies that prove it.”

Flack also seconds this theory, and says football could give certain players a chance to make it to the CFL as well. Only five schools are needed to make an OCAA league and a final decision will be made in December 2011.

“At this point we have six schools which have expressed strong inter-est,” says Flack. “I am a very proud member of the OCAA but we’re not perfect and I think we’ve dropped the ball on this one. It’s an expensive sport, but we’ve found a way to approach it from a different angle where it would be less expensive yet still provide what I believe is every bit as Canadian as curling and hockey.

“Our Grey Cup is an old and prestigious trophy and we have a league that is purely Canadian and we have our own of rules,” says Flack. “I am 100 per cent convinced that if we did this athletes from Fanshawe, Sheridan, the Sault, Humber and Algonquin, if they were in the league, would be playing in the CFL, and I don’t think you can say that about any other league than the CFL. What league can you turn on the TV and see somebody from your college playing? You just can’t, and this is an incredible opportunity for us to support a truly unique Canadian sport and keep that part of our Canadian culture alive.”

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COLTON DE GOOYER

This is the story of two small colleges. Despite not having the highest budgets or be-ing the most popular destinations for student athletes, they’re giving women’s basketball another chance.

It’s been six years since Sault College in Sault Ste. Marie cheered for women’s basketball, and two decades for Lambton in Sarnia. That’s a significant number of years and enough time to spark a new flame and bring some real passion back into the sport.

On one hand there’s the story of Sault College, whose women’s basketball program lacked inter-est in a town that just didn’t have much competi-tion for women. And now, in the last few years, women’s basketball has become the hot topic in the city of 75,000. They’ve got a new team and a new coach who’s trying to make all the right moves and tough recruiting decisions.

On the other hand, Lambton has gone 20 years without women’s basketball.

To put it into perspective, some of the girls on the team weren’t alive the last time their school put a women’s team on the court.

For many years club basketball wasn’t part of the equation for Sault Ste. Marie, and most of the competition was found strictly in high schools. It wasn’t until club systems were devel-oped in the Sault that basketball interest began to flourish. Basketball Ontario is one of the main clubs in the city now, and had a hand in bringing

attention to basketball in Sault Ste. Marie over the last few years by providing free competitive teams and leagues to play in.

“There has been a boom in interest over the last few years,” says Sault College athletic as-sistant Scott Gray.

Gaining interest and popularity are only part of what goes into forming a basketball team. Players need to be recruited to fill the rosters.

“The most important thing in recruiting is not just recruiting athletes but recruiting student athletes,” notes Katie Hamilton, re-cently appointed head coach of Sault College’s women’s basketball team. “Retention is a big thing – students who plan to stay two, three or four years. It’s beneficial if they plan to finish what they started.”

Sault College and Algoma University, both located in Sault Ste. Marie, often have to compete for the same athletes in the recruiting process. This is now the case in women’s hoops, as Algoma’s women’s basketball team will now be divisional rivals with Sault.

“We’re going to cross paths at some points and may be talking to the same player. It happens,” says Hamilton. “When I meet with a player the first thing I ask is what they want out of their academic education, if they need a BA obviously I won’t try to sway them from that.

“There has definitely been interest in some players. I’ve been to high schools and universi-ties speaking to coaches. I’ve been looking in the north, in the south and in the states. We’re close

to Michigan and some of those athletes aren’t going to (Division 1) or … 2 schools.”

Laura Lehto played for Hamilton in Basketball Ontario’s elite development program and says she has a lot of respect for her as a coach. In fact, Lehto is so interested in playing for the Cougars that she’s packing her bags and moving from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie.

“Katie emailed me looking for a point guard. I think it’s good that they’re bringing women’s basketball back,” says Lehto. “There are lots of passionate players and a lot of colleges don’t offer it so (students) don’t get the opportunity – I’m excited.”

Lehto says there are many ways for female basketball players to keep their skills up to par, even if their school doesn’t have a team. “Just find as much high competition as you can, even if you have to play against guys. Take as many training programs as you can and talk to your past coaches,” she advises.

One of the hardest things for new teams to do is get into a rhythm. It’s like the first day of high school when everyone scopes out the classroom and feels out of place because they don’t know most of their classmates. Until that level of com-fort is achieved and everyone knows the strengths and weaknesses of the teammates they’ll suit up with every night for games and practices it may be a bit of a bumpy ride.

“It would be unfair to expect championship caliber athletes to come into progression the very first year of the existence,” notes Hamilton.

The women from Lambton and Sault

look to renew old rivalries

Back in the Game

SAM CARSON

For Ontario’s three smallest universities – Trent, Algoma, and Nipissing – lacking the budget or student body of the larger schools, participation in the OCAA as affiliate members offers the best chance of a competitive varsity program for their students.

Fred Batley, the OCAA executive committee member in charge of memberships, says colleges are almost guaranteed acceptance, but the process is more involved for non-college schools seeking affiliate membership.

The process involves seeking sponsorship from the athletic directors of two full member schools and creating a presentation detailing their plan for involvement and growth in the association, says Batley.

He adds affiliate members will often have spe-cial conditions on their memberships which vary depending on the school. One condition is that a school can’t field a team in both the OCAA and OUA in one sport, which Batley says prevents universities from fielding “farm teams” – where new athletes spend time in the OCAA practising before they move to the OUA.

Trent University has teams in men’s and women’s volleyball, as well as men’s rugby in the OCAA – teams that the school wouldn’t be able

to field in the OUA.Trent’s men’s rugby team has been much

more successful since joining the OCAA two seasons ago, putting together a 4-3 record in 2010, and a 5-2 record the previous year. Trent consistently had a record of only one or two wins in a season in the OUA.

Bill Byrick, Trent’s athletic director, points out that when Trent last played Queens’ rugby team the average age of Queens’ players was 26, compared to 18 for Trent. This discrepancy is thanks to Queens’ access to students in graduate programs. Byrick says the difference in maturity and size is one of the reasons smaller schools with younger students have a hard time staying competitive in the OUA.

This prompted Trent to apply for member-ship in the OCAA, a league that Byrick thought would most benefit Trent athletes. “It’s a good league and a good fit,” he adds.

Trent holds membership in the OUA as well as the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association, and offers 17 sports to their students.

“We’ve selected sports where we think we can be competitive given the resources we have available,” says Byrick.

Algoma University has been a member of the OCAA for a decade, as a former affiliation with Laurentian University excluded them

from OUA eligibility. “We’ve been in the OCAA for 10 years and

we’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been a fantastic relationship,” says Mark Kontulainen, Algoma’s athletic director. He adds that the milestone was part of the school’s motivation in hosting this year’s basketball finals.

Algoma competes in the OCAA in basketball, indoor soccer and curling, and formerly offered a cross-country running team, although that hasn’t been offered for the last few years.

Kontulainen says one of the challenges in expanding the program is getting enough athletes, as Algoma is a small school with less than 1,200 full-time undergraduate students enrolled at the university.

While basketball has been a strong recruit-ing tool for the school, Kontulainen admits that sports like indoor soccer and curling are more often seen as a ‘bonus’ among students that have already enrolled. “People are here for an educa-tion and realize, Oh, you offer this too, and then participate,” says Kontulainen.

While not all schools are guaranteed a place in the OCAA – Carleton University and Royal Military College are schools Batley says have applied and been rejected – those that are serious about competing and participating in the organi-zation are welcomed.

Competition on both frontsCourtesy Matt Stetson

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“We build to what we want, and that could be a championship possibly in the future.”

Down at the opposite end of Lake Huron where Lambton sits, women’s basketball had an even lon-ger absence. Now the school has cancelled women’s volleyball in favour of women’s basketball.

Lambton athletic director John Faragher says this move has been two years in the works. As a result, Lambton’s women’s volleyball play-ers have been playing a dead sport for the past two years.

“It hasn’t really been an issue though,” says Faragher. “Most (of the volleyball players) are graduating next year.”

The small size of the school, the lack of gym availability and the financial constraints faced by the college prompted Lambton to take a new direction.

“We have looked at all our varsity sports over the last several years and have decided it was our

window of opportunity to switch from volleyball to basketball,” says Faragher.

“Competitiveness was also factored into the decision and the opportunity for both basketball teams to travel in tandem for games.”

Like Sault College, Lambton believes student-athletes are a priority. Both schools want athletes that not only show up for practices and games, but also attend classes.

“You could be the best basketball player in the league but you need to do well academically to do well athletically,” says Faragher.

Lambton has been attracting athletes by hosting open gym sessions and intramurals, where athletes from other colleges and universi-ties as well as high schools can come and check out the school’s athletic facilities and play ball, says Faragher.

Open gym sessions typically get athletes more familiar and comfortable with the school and give coaches a chance to pick out talent. Instead of just reading about the school or hearing about it through word of mouth, players can actually pick up a basketball and feel the polished wood beneath their feet.

Courtesy Sault Athletics

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KYLE GENNINGS

Wherever icy winds blow and snow accu-mulates, countless Canadians seek shelter and comfort from the elements in the warm and wel-coming halls of their local curling clubs. There is a reason that of the 1.2 million curlers in the world, one million of them are Canadian.

“Curling is like a big extended family, it’s like seeing your cousins after a year,” says Steve Whitehill, head coach of Peterborough’s Fleming College Knights’ three curling squads.

Whitehill and his Knights joined 10 Ontario college teams to meet, greet and compete in the 2011 OCAA Provincial Curling Bonspiel, hosted this year by Fleming College’s Frost Campus in Lindsay. The annual Bonspiel has been a tradition in the OCAA since 1967. It has been bringing curlers together from all around the province annually to participate in the friendly competition and social gathering.

“Curling is a social sport more than any other,” says Brian Moffat, head coach of the Sen-eca Sting mixed curling squad. “With curling, a lot of these players have been competing against each other since they were in junior and bantam leagues (so) they really form lasting friendships.”

If a clubhouse had a volume knob, it would only have two settings: in play and post play. The

first is filled with a tense silence only broken with hushed comments about the on-ice action. The second is filled with laughter and camaraderie, with every concern left out on the sheets.

After Seneca’s absence last year due to lack of turnout, Moffat is happy to be back at the Bonspiel catching up with old friends. He is also pleased with the level of competition in the OCAA, displayed by every team on the sheets.

“It’s fantastic,” says Moffat. “The level of curling has improved every year and more and more teams are joining in, it’s really great. Most of the games have been won or lost by under two points.”

Whitehill, a veteran coach and the senior convenor for this year’s competition, has seen his fair share of provincial Bonspiels and knows good curling when he sees it. “Both the women’s and mixed competitions are quite competitive this

year,” says Whitehill. “I could have picked the top three men’s teams before they hit the sheets though.”

“You see a lot of the kids every year,” says Whitehill. “They compete throughout their lives. It’s really neat to see them grow and get better and better.”

With teams consisting of only four core players and a few alternates, the focus on team communication and co-operation is an integral part of what makes curling.

“It is definitely a team sport,” says Whitehill. “Sure there are big name players, but you can’t make it in curling on your own, you need the rest of the team to compete … and (to) remain competitive.”

Attracting big name players can be tough. “We’re the underdog in the competition be-

cause we’re the smallest,” says Jane Bolin, athletic co-ordinator of the Frost Campus in Lindsay and Bonspiel organizer. “We’ve had a much bigger turnout this year. 24 students tried out. That might not seem like much at all but you have to consider the fact that only 10 students came out the year before.”

Bolin says size puts the Frost Campus at a dis-advantage when it comes to most varsity sports, “Most courses are only two years, so that can be tough,” she says.

A cornerstone of the country’s culture,

curling represents the ideals of what it

means to be Canadian

Canada’s Stone

Foundation

Curling is a social sport more than any other

Brian MoffatSeneca Sting Curling Coach

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Curling is like a big extended family

Steve WhitehillCoach, Fleming Peterborough Auks

Fanshawe, Algonquin and Seneca win curling titles

The Fanshawe men’s team, Algonquin women’s team and Seneca’s mixed team won gold medals in curling at the 2011 OCAA championships hosted by Fleming College-Lindsay.The men’s team from Fanshawe knocked off two-time defending champion Fleming-Peterborough 4-2 in the final. Fanshawe earned a bye all the way to the gold medal game with a perfect 8-0 record in round-robin play. Fanshawe has now won four provincial titles in men’s curling.Algonquin’s women’s team edged the 2010 champion Mohawk 6-5. Algonquin cruised through round-robin play, earning an 8-0 record. The gold medal for Algonquin’s women’s team is the first title since 2003-04 and its third overall.Seneca won the mixed championship, 9-8 over St. Clair. The victory gave Seneca its seventh gold medal in mixed curling and its first title since 2001-02.Bronze medal winners were Niagara’s men’s team, the women’s team from Fanshawe and the mixed team from Algoma.

Angelo Mazziotti

Courtesy Fanshawe Athletics

sweatmag.com36

REMY GREER

Fresh off a flight across the country, a team assembles in a hotel lounge to discuss the itinerary for the day. Game time isn’t for 12 hours, but prepara-tions have already begun.

A hearty egg breakfast is gulped down while the group watches game tape and coaches go through the Xs and Os on a whiteboard. Strict game plans are put forth before the team rushes on a greyhound bus en route to the gym. This is the annual routine for Ontario women’s varsity squads at national championships.

Despite these measures, though, a national gold medal for Ontario women competing in the core sports remains elusive.

The Canadian Colleges Athletic Association (CCAA) has held national championships in women’s basketball and volleyball since 1978 and wom-en’s soccer since 1992. Yet, in that timeframe not a single OCAA women’s team in any of these sports has captured CCAA gold.

Vince Pileggi, co-head coach of Humber’s women’s soccer team has taken his Hawks to six of the last 12 national championships, with just three bronze medals to show for it.

Pileggi says the competition in the OCAA is not strong enough to pre-pare his team for nationals.

Sheridan women’s basketball head coach Shane Bascoe tasted defeat on the national stage for three consecutive years (2008-10), despite his Bruins’ undefeated run of over 60 games in the OCAA. Bascoe attributes Quebec’s dominance in women’s basketball to the RSEQ’s competitive AAA division.

“Quebec has six elite teams: Montmorency, Sainte-Foy, Vanier, Daw-son, Edouard-Montpetit and Sherbrooke,” says Bascoe. “The competi-tion is so strong all year that once they get to nationals they’re ready for the challenge.”

Ontario women’s volleyball teams haven’t fared any better at nationals. In the last 20 years, the conference has brought home just four CCAA bronze medals in the sport.

Fleming-Peterborough athletic director and OCAA past-president Fred Batley says the number of schools in Ontario contributes to the conference’s struggles at national competitions.

With 30 institutions, the OCAA is much larger than the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (16), British Columbia Colleges Athletic Association (14) and Atlantic Colleges Athletic Association (9).

“What happens is we water down and spread our athletes very thin within the 30 member colleges,” says Batley, a former president of the CCAA. “When you look at the other conferences, they don’t have as many members so their athlete pool is much larger.”

Quebec’s athletic body, the RSEQ, has 41 member schools, but is split up into AAA, AA and A divisions.

The RSEQ has dominated nationals in the women’s core sports since their inception. Quebec has captured 27 of 34 CCAA titles in women’s vol-leyball, 25 of 34 in women’s basketball and seven of 19 in women’s soccer.

In La Belle Province, a CEGEP diploma – from a vocational or general college – is required for admission into university. As a result, the RSEQ teams incorporate not only college talent, but also athletes on their way to university.

“They have the CEGEPs and they’re free so the athlete can pick where they want to go,” says Batley. “They only have so many schools in AAA so the key players who want to go play those core sports will go there where they have that winning history.

“They’re also a feeder on to the CIS so they’ve got the best of both worlds there. That’s why they’re so strong.”

In the last decade Quebec has ruled the pitch in women’s soccer, with F-X-Garneau winning five CCAA gold medals in the last 10 years.

Humber dominated Ontario in women’s soccer, only allowing three goals all season. But at nationals in November Humber matched its season total in goals against in its first game of the tournament alone and ended up with the bronze medal.

Pileggi says the current model in the OCAA is broken, and advocates the adoption of a tier system.

“Quite a few teams are not up to national standards,” he says. “The league is not competitive enough to prepare teams for the level of competi-tion at nationals.”

Pileggi points to the RSEQ, where the conference’s seven schools in the AAA division have become destination schools for the elite athletes.

Quebec’s stranglehold on women’s national college athletics is reinforced with their domination of women’s hoops.

Despite three straight provincial titles from 2008-10, the Sheridan Bruins women’s basketball squad has not yet attained national glory.

“Nationals is one of those things where it’s one and done,” says Bruins sophomore guard Michelle Asare. “If you don’t perform then you’re going to have to go home and nobody wants to go home.”

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The RSEQ’s AAA women’s basketball divisional depth is unparalleled. Three-time defending CCAA champions Sainte-Foy finished in fourth place in 2010-11 and failed to qualify for nationals.

“Once you get out of Ontario you see a lot of different styles of play,” says Asare. “Quebec’s style is very quick and when we go to Alberta and British Columbia they’re very big players.”

Asare says it’s clear which conference offers the most competition.“I think right now Quebec,” says Asare. “They’re very guard-oriented and

so are we, they’re very fast and so are we.”Bascoe says incorporating a division system for women’s basketball in

Ontario would increase the level of play in the OCAA, but cautions that such a move wouldn’t be to everyone’s benefit.

“What is the incentive for those who are not in tier one to have an op-portunity to win an OCAA Championship? Be recognized as an all-star?” he asks.

Bascoe says the plethora of universities in the other athletic conferences grants those schools more time to coach and develop the student-athletes.

“Out of province you’ve got schools with four years of eligibility,” says Bascoe. “In Ontario we often only have two years with our athletes, so they end up with more seasoned players.”

Out west, seven of the 14 member schools of the BCCAA are universities while the ACAC boasts five universities among its 16 member schools.

The influx of university-colleges in the BCCAA has led to considerable recent success for the conference, as three of the last four national titles in women’s volleyball have gone to British Columbia schools.

“When you look at UBC Okanagan, when they became part of UBC all of a sudden that bolstered their program because now they’re seen as a university, not a college,” says Batley, a former national convenor of women’s volleyball. “All of a sudden all those university athletes go there. You look at the success of their women’s program, they’re the best in the country.”

In women’s volleyball, Batley says the other conferences have different mechanisms for getting athletes to the provincial and national teams.

“If you look at FX Garneau, they have a junior club system, then they have their college and university system that flows right into their provin-cial, their national team,” adds Batley. “So it’s a natural progression, whereas in Ontario that’s not the case.”

The American influence has also contributed to the plight of OCAA female athletics, as the Greater Toronto Area is the most heavily recruited Canadian region by NCAA scouts.

“When the NCAA wanted that equality with their scholarship program they put a lot of money into the women’s sports,” says Batley.

“Same with the men, but they had always done that so we’d always com-pensate for it. But all of a sudden there was a mass exodus of women. When you only have so much talent in Ontario – and a lot of it has left – with 30 colleges that talent is spread pretty thin.”

To combat the emigration of many of its female athletes and its inef-fectiveness at nationals in the core sports, the OCAA has experimented with several different structures throughout its history.

Batley says the OCAA’s division system for core sports was disbanded in

1990 because the system was not benefiting every member school.The OCAA currently splits up the participating schools in women’s

core sports geographically into West and East regions, as a means to reduce travel costs.

“Going to a tier structure based on past results and strength of program could mean that your men’s team is traveling in a different direction than your women’s team,” says Redeemer University College athletic director Dave Mantel. “That could double your travel budget.”

Batley says the larger metropolitan schools, which would comprise divi-sion one, would not be as affected by the travel constraints of a tier system as the smaller colleges.

“So travel and costs are less than if you’re in division two and you’re a perimeter school or in the extremities, you’re traveling all over Ontario and sometimes the cost becomes prohibitive,” he says.

The OCAA has failed to come to grips with a competitive model that will allow the top teams to play each other all the time, says Batley.

“The constant battle is that the ones who are saying ‘We’re gearing towards nationals, let us have that structure to be competitive. Those of you who just want to get to the provincials you have your structure to allow you to get there’,” says Batley.

“You have the haves and have-nots. Some have lots of money and some don’t; some have lots of athletes and some don’t.”

Redeemer is the OCAA’s smallest institution, with a full-time student enrolment of just 850. Mantel says a tier system in the core sports would ameliorate the OCAA, provided a few conditions are in place.

“I think a tier system makes a lot of sense for every school,” says Mantel. “But it needs to be somewhat fluid. It should be based on your results and a division two team should have the capability of moving up, with a relegation-type system.”

Mantel says his priority is to ensure the best possible competitive balance for the OCAA, which he says may run counter to trying to get the most national titles for the conference.

“I’m not so sure I care how many more national championships Ontario gets,” says Mantel. “I’m more concerned about the student-athlete experi-ence for every student that goes to an Ontario institution.”

Bascoe says despite all of the obstacles facing OCAA women’s core sports there is no substitute for diligent recruiting and staunch commit-ment to coaching.

“The dedication of the coaching staff (and) dedication to building a pro-gram is much more prevalent at nationals with the elite teams,” says Bascoe.

“One thing that the OCAA can do to increase the level of play in the league is recruit,” he says. “It’s tough, but if you truly want to win, then work harder than any coach to get the best players to suit your team.”

Bascoe, a national player of the year and three-time all-Canadian with Sheridan in men’s basketball, says the women’s game has come a long way in the decade since his playing days.

“I remember when I played my final year at Seneca and there were only six players warming up for Mohawk’s women’s team,” says Bascoe. “There wasn’t as much commitment to the women’s as there was for the men’s teams, but I think that’s changing.”

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sweatmag.com40

ANDREW ARDIZZI

There’s something imposing about a 6-foot-5 basketball player with no reservations about throwing one down on you if you get in his way as he nears the basket. On the court Eric Smith hardly bats a lash against defend-ers; he’s completely capable of posterizing anyone in his way. Not bad for a kid from Ajax, Ontario with a 16-year love affair with basketball.

To think, he almost quit.“After leaving high school I didn’t get the full-ride scholarship. I was

more concerned with getting a job and making money,” Smith recalls.Coming out of high school, the third-year Durham Lords forward

wanted nothing more than to play in the NCAA, but he was discouraged and almost walked away from the game he loves.

Why come back?“The fact I love playing it,” says Smith. That love is but a glimpse of the man behind the player.Durham Lords men’s basketball coach Desmond Rowley says he and the

coaching staff have continually preached to Smith about his potential. “I’ve been coaching basketball for quite a while and he’s easily the top

two or three people I’ve ever coached talent-wise,” says Rowley. “He’s just starting to realize how good he really is.”

The numbers don’t lie. Smith won the OCAA scoring title, averaging 21.6 points-per-game, improving his scoring output over the last three seasons by almost 3 points.

“In his first year … Eric was kind of a fringe guy. But last year and this year he’s been our main guy, but we’re not running any more plays for him this year than we did last year. I think he’s just getting it,” says Rowley.

Scoring is just one piece of the puzzle; Smith also won the OCAA re-bounding title, averaging 10.3 rebounds-per-game while playing out of posi-tion at power forward or centre depend-ing on where the team needed him.

Rowley says Smith’s rebounding ability comes from having a knack for position-ing himself where he needs to be.

“It’s almost hard to explain, you kind of just have to watch him play. He just knows where to go on the floor,” says Rowley. “When he makes up his mind to grab a rebound there’s nobody in this league that can go get one of them.”

Smith accepts his role on the team, al-though his willingness to do anything to help the team win almost always matches him up against players who are 6-foot-8 or 6-foot-9. But it doesn’t bother Smith. In fact, he says he thrives on it.

“That doesn’t scare me, it’s more of a challenge,” says Smith. “Because there’s no one as big as me and can grab rebounds the way I can. I usually play centre or power forward. I’m supposed to be (playing) shooting guard or small forward, but I’m an oversized shooting guard,” he says.

Smith is hardly blowing his abilities out of proportion. In a game earlier this season against St. Lawrence, Smith blew by his defender and drove to the

basket. He proceeded to dunk on both him and another player who came to double team Smith. Watch it, the footage is on YouTube.

“When I have the ball I have it in my mind to just dominate,” says Smith. “I want people to know what I’m capable of so there’s no sense in hiding it.”

Smith scored 1,188 points during his time with the Lords, placing him second all-time in Durham men’s basketball scoring, and his accomplish-ments are a trophy case worth of accolades in the sport. OCAA second- and first-team all-star; OCAA all-rookie team; Durham College rookie of the year in 2008-09; two-time OCAA athlete of the week; two-time team MVP; and CCAA featured athlete. To cap off his final season in the OCAA Smith was named OCAA player of the year and an all-Canadian.

Though basketball is only half Eric’s story.Smith is in the third year of Durham’s law and security program and has

aspirations to move onto the university level to get his degree in criminology.“I find it interesting because the school offers both police foundations

and law and security, but I chose law and security because there’s a wider option of job opportunities available after,” he says. “When you go into police foundations you’re just going specifically into policing and I was looking towards … a job in border services or at the airport in customs.”

Not only is Smith doing well on the court, but he’s maintaining a strong GPA in school. He’s well on his way to graduating and moving on to uni-versity, says Rowley.

“He’s a very bright kid, he has his head on right. He knows what he wants to do and he works towards what he wants,” says Rowley.

Smith plans to continue playing basketball at the post-secondary level, but will have to adapt his game.

“Most people I’ve seen cannot stop him around the basket. If he goes to university there will be some bigger people so he’ll have to adjust. If he can pull them away from the basket and shoot a little mid-range shot then

that will make him unstoppable,” says Rowley. “He’s working on that.”

Smith maintains it’s simply part of his work ethic.

“There are always tweaks that need to be made … you’re never as good as you think you are,” he says.

Rowley says Eric’s ability to lead the OCAA in scoring and rebounding is a good indicator of his talents, in addition to his improving passing abilities.

Smith has also grown into a leadership role on the court and in the locker room, a role he relishes and accepts.

“If I have to bring everyone together on a break and tell everyone to relax and that we have a lot more time left to go during the games (I can); don’t rush things and let things come to us,” he says. “I’m a good team player, a role model.”

On the court, Smith considers himself someone who is a go-to-guy when points are needed, and is someone who can be depended upon. Yet, he doesn’t discount the examples his teammates have set for him.

“I also look up to people who have been here before me like Courtney Small. He’s the one who showed me the

Lord SmithRules the OCAA

Matthew Ingram

sweatmag.com41

ropes of being a Durham College athlete, a student athlete and showed me how to communicate on and off the court. I look up to him,” says Smith.

Small, a fifth-year player at Durham, has been with Smith throughout his entire stint with the Lords. Smith says the two have forged a strong friend-ship during their time as teammates.

“I kind of just took him under my wing,” says Small. “We just hung out and had a good time. I think that transferred onto the court. When we’re on the court together we’re really effective.”

Small says they’re a lot alike and joke around a lot, but when they’re on the court it’s all business.

“He’s a very talented kid,” says Small. “I think my own drive motivates him to work harder … I think he just looked up to me because I’m a year or two older than him.”

The respect goes both ways.“He’s a double-double machine on beast mode,” says Small.Smith works hard and is a quick learner, says Small.“There’s not enough I can say about this kid. He still has a bit of growing

to do. He’s a young guy, but he’s very mature.” The Lords played well this season, knocking off a number-one ranked

Algonquin team. The victory snapped Algonquin’s 18-game unbeaten streak in a game in which Smith nearly came away with a triple-double.

“He’s a tough match-up. He can handle the ball, he’s a pretty good scorer, a pretty good rebounder. Overall he’s certainly one of the many all-stars in our league,” says Algonquin Thunder coach Trevor Costello.

Costello says Smith has noticeably improved his ball handling and has become more confident in his decision making over the last two years.

“We kind of let him get his, because it doesn’t matter what you do with him he’s pretty good for a double-double a game,” says Costello. “We just try to keep (Tyler) McGarrity and Courtney (Small) and the other guys off the score sheet.”

Costello says Algonquin didn’t try to specifically stop Smith though, focusing more on their own strategies while containing the other Lords.

Even with the huge win to punctuate their regular season, Smith’s aspira-tions for an OCAA title fell short. The team finished with a strong second place in the East division, but were upended 79-67 by Fanshawe in the opening round of the OCAA playoffs.

With the loss, Smith and the Lords shifted their focus towards the national championships for which, as tournament hosts, Durham automatically qualified for. Despite the home-court advantage, the Lords struggled at nationals, losing all three of its games and finishing in eighth place.

Every person or player has role models they use as examples for how they carry themselves, and Smith is no different.

“A role model in my life I would say is my dad,” says Smith. “Seeing the success in his life and wanting to be successful also (is a motivator). He raised three boys and put a roof overhead.”

“He always stressed loving each other, I always had older brothers to look up to … go to church together, go to dinners together just to keep the fam-ily tight,” he says.

As a player though, that’s a different story. He has vivid memories of two moments: when Allen Iverson crossed over Michael Jordan during his rookie season, and when the Toronto Raptors defeated the Chicago Bulls during their 72-win season in 1995-96. Nonetheless, Smith doesn’t consider any one player a personal role model.

“I wouldn’t really say I have a role model, but (I admire) people who work hard towards their dream,” says Smith. “People who want to make it somewhere in life and stick to their dream instead of holding back … People who would go that extra step to make their dreams come true.”

Smith says he doesn’t want to dwell on his past, his accomplishments or the things he can’t fix.

“In my lifetime I hope I don’t have to look back, and am happy with what I have here (in the present) and the future I’ve made for myself.”

Smith is very clear about his aspirations after graduating from university since he’s been told he has the potential to play professionally.

“After graduating I’ll attempt to go to some type of pro league, like somewhere in Europe … and get paid for something I love doing; suc-ceeding to help my family, pay for houses, help my friends,” he says. “If that doesn’t work out the backup plan is to get a job somewhere in the law field.

“My ultimate goal is to be successful in life, to have a family and friends I can depend on and to always look forward and never back.”

Courtesy Durham Athletics

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A

Liquid Ticket

to the

Sideline

Many of the unlisted ingredients found in energy drinks

can result in a positive drug test for OCAA athletes

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MATTHEW LOPES

It all starts with a sip and a gulp. Adenosine, the chemical that causes drowsiness in the brain is given a stiff arm by a large dose of caffeine. Within seconds the neurons located in the brain begin to fire like the pistons in a formula one car as the pituitary gland releases adrenaline into the body. Eyes dilate, heart rate increases, and the liver releases sugar into the bloodstream. This translates into what an athlete perceives as energy.

These stimulating chemical changes in the body’s central and peripheral nervous systems can be mistaken, as amphetamine, speed, or cocaine use, but OCAA athletes need not venture into any dark alleyways or shady crack houses as this stimulation can be found in a can of Red Bull.

Alison Chasczewski, athletic therapist at Durham College, says use of this adrenaline boosting liquid is most prominent in Hockey. “In dealing with our hockey players, specifically, you know, and they will say themselves that they drank too much. They will say that they had three Red Bulls before the game, and three more in-between periods.” Chasczewski says the nega-tive effects are sometimes immediately apparent. “They’ll come off the ice with the shakes, they’ll be puking after, and they have been warned, but it’s a matter of perception.”

Energy drinks contain many of the banned substances in the OCAA, and can result in a student athlete testing positive in randomly administered drug tests. As it is considered a supplement by Health Canada, energy drinks are not required to label all of their ingredients. “We’re stressing to them that because of the industry not being regulated, and not having to list all of their ingredients, they absolutely do stick more ingredients in there that athletes are testing positive for – although mostly outside of the college level,” notes Chasczewski.

The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) sets the drug testing rules for Canadian athletes from the college level to the Olym-pics. Jeremy Luke, director of anti-doping at the CCES, warns supplements such as energy drinks could inadvertently cause an athlete to test positive.

The NCAA still tests for high levels of caf-feine, determined by its concentration in urine, for their athletes, but Luke says the CCES has recently dropped caffeine, which is very common in energy drinks, from their banned substances list. “Some substances you can have a reduced amount if you can prove that it was not for performance enhancing reasons,” says Luke, who adds it could be a last defense for an athlete test-ing positive from a banned substance found in an energy drink.

Under the CCES umbrella, OCAA athletes attend an education session that outlines the repercussions of supplement use from a doping

perspective. Luke says energy drinks are men-tioned during this session.

Energy drinks have clashed with the world of sports in the past and resulted in several cases of young athletes suffering serious ailments and even death. Red Bull was banned in France for several years following the death of Ross Cooney, a basketball player who died on the court after sharing four cans of Red Bull before a basketball game.

Dr. Barbara Crouch from the University of Utah’s Poison Control Centre says, “You can down it (caffeine) pretty quickly, and follow up with another can right after so, unlike a cup of coffee, the rate of absorption is very significant, and that’s dangerous.” She adds, “It’s the dose that makes the poison.”

Crouch added that although cans may list the amounts of caffeine, they don’t list synthetic and natural forms of caffeine such as guarana,

ginseng and taurine which are found in many energy drinks. In addition to the caffeine con-tent, manufacturers will include serious stimu-lants that have been linked to health problems in the past.

“Bitter Orange is a cousin to ephedrine and it can cause irregular heartbeat and arrhythmias,” warns Crouch. “It poses a significant risk and it’s one of the reasons ephedrine was taken off the shelves in the United States.”

Ephedrine is a stimulant often found in cold medication or cough syrup. Jennifer Bell, Hum-ber College’s athletic therapist, says when she was a therapist for Junior A hockey one of the players was taken to the hospital with heart palpitations after mixing an energy drink with ephedrine and athletic activity. “If an athlete mixes an energy drink with ephedrine they can go into cardiac arrest,” she warns.

Luke says the CCES education session does not go over the health effects related to energy drinks but they do advise members of athletic faculty. “We work with therapists to ensure that there’s a common understanding around the risks associated with supplements and energy drinks, to make sure athletes are advised both from a health perspective and a doping perspective.”

In professional sport, anabolic steroids and human growth hormones have played a part in increasing the physical capabilities of athletes.

Energy drinks, on the other hand, are stimulants for the mental aspect of sport where split second timing is everything.

“I think athletes believe that it is that pick-me-up. Physiologically, energy drinks don’t actually work that way,” says Bell. “They’ll get that huge high but they will get that huge crash right after. It could actually be more detrimental to their performance, but they don’t see that.”

The stimulants that can be found in energy drinks are considered “uppers.” Drugs that fall into this category include cocaine, metham-phetamine, nicotine, caffeine, and ecstasy, but Luke says the most common substance found in college and university athletes is a hallucinogen. “Statistically, cannabis is a substance that is found more often than others.”

Both Bell and Chasczewski agree that energy drinks are prominent at the college level. “I don’t see it as much in the court sports as the outdoor sports. In soccer, the athletes are wanting to take it at half-time to gain a little bit of an edge,” says Chasczewski. But she added that the privacy of hockey change rooms provides a unique op-portunity for players to sneak in a drink or two without ridicule. “I think it’s more prevalent in hockey because they’re able to leave the ice go into a private dressing room. It’s harder to be chugging down a drink on the sidelines with everybody watching them.”

Energy drinks have been scrutinized by the media and evaluated by doctors highlighting the dangers of their use. Even with the danger, OCAA athletes continue to use the stimulating soft drink. “To me, that lack of training and the lack of conditioning in the first place is what prompts athletes to use energy drinks,” says Chasczewski. “Living the lifestyle of a student, which includes their partying, and their social aspect, and staying up late and not eating proper nutrition. Their bodies are depleted and they’re not taking care of themselves, so when they have these energy drinks on the market that have these stimulants, it puts stress on the heart.”

In the world of sport gaining the edge can be the difference between scoring the winning goal and conceiving it, winning a champion-ship or losing it. Energy drinks can potentially help athletes gain this edge, but as science and history have shown, you never know when that stimulating gulp can land you on the sideline or in the hospital.

It’s the dose that makes the poison

Dr. Barbara CrouchUniversity of Utah Poison Control Centre

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MICHAEL RAINE

Your muscles ache, your side is cramping and your focus is blurred – not to mention the putrid smell of your own urine. Before you google your symptoms and self diagnose, ask yourself, how much water you drank today. Because the single 550ml bottle of water you downed before game time just isn’t cutting it, and perhaps dehydration has set in. And although you may not be able to salvage this game’s aches and pains, your performance for the next can be greatly improved by merely keeping your body hydrated.

Unfortunately, playing and training dehydrated is a very common practice among both amateur and professional athletes. A recent study by researchers at Universidad de Castilla la Mancha in Spain published in the European Journal of Sports Science found that 91 per cent of professional European athletes they examined were beginning their training sessions dehydrated. Unfortunately, this is not a particularly shocking discovery and the physical effects of dehydration can be extremely serious.

Alexis Williams, registered dietician and certified personal trainer for Transition Health, says the consensus in studies on hydration is that once an athlete loses two to three per cent of their body weight in fluid, their performance level will suffer by 10 per cent. For every percentage of body weight lost after that point, the affects of dehydration get more severe. “At four per cent you’re looking at reduced muscle strength, fine motor skills and heat cramps,” she warns. “By five per cent you’re looking at heat exhaustion, cramping, fatigue and reduced mental capacity. Six per cent physical exhaustion, heat stroke and coma.”

“I think (dehydration) is a lot more common than people think,” says Dr. Chad Moreau, president of hockeyot.com, which creates off-ice training and nutritional plans for hockey players. “A lot of times you’ll see an athlete that is fatigued. Their ability to recover between exercises is really low.”

An unusual feeling of fatigue is not the only consequence of dehydration. Moreau, who is also a former strength and conditioning/nutritional con-

sultant for the Edmonton Oilers, says other signs an athlete is dehydrated during training can include increased muscle soreness, an increased need for

recovery time between training sessions and a decreased desire to compete and push oneself. Moreau also notes, “If an athlete starts cramping, you’re in big trouble. They probably have a severe dehydration issue. At the very least, they have a mineral imbalance.”

“Another (sign) is urine,” adds Williams. “Very little urine or urine that is dark in colour and strong in odour.”

The mental affects of dehydration can be just as debilitating to perfor-mance as the physical ones, but are sometimes harder to spot. Dehydration negatively impacts concentration and focus. A player who usually sees the game well and makes the right plays will start making poor decisions. Moreau says when a hockey player starts making poor decisions in the third period they wouldn’t have made in the first it can be a sign of dehydration.

Williams and Moreau agree that in order to avoid to the effects of de-hydration, athletes must be proactive. They say waiting until you’re thirsty is not sufficient because thirst is your body’s way of telling you that you’re already dehydrated.

Moreau says most athletes don’t realize how far ahead of time they must begin hydrating to be at their ideal hydration level by game time. “Hydra-tion has to start a couple days ahead and a lot of times I think it begins even further ahead than that. If you really want to look at hydration issues for athletes, or really for anybody, hydration is a constant battle.”

Williams adds that athletes should be on a daily hydration plan. Coaches and trainers are advised to set hydration goals for each player. “Setting some goals for them as to how many litres to get through in the morning and in the afternoon.” She adds that goals should not be the same for each player because, “it really depends on how big they are and how much they sweat as to the specific numbers.”

“You have to hydrate every single day and you have to hydrate as much as you possibly can so that when you come to a competition and you’re going to be sweating heavily your hydration level is going to be so high that you’re going to be able to absorb that impact,” adds Moreau. “It can lead to significantly increased level of performance.”

Unfortunately for college athletes whose lives do not revolve around their sport like professional athletes, everyday hydration can take a backseat to other concerns. Steve Kopas, athletic therapist at Seneca College, says there is one simple thing college athletes can do to stay hydrated. “At the beginning of the year they get a water bottle in their varsity packages,” Kopas notes. “I tell them they should carry that around with them all the time and just make it part of their routine. That way when they’re in class and they have their water bottle in their hand, it’s an easy reminder and they take little sips of water throughout the day versus trying to get them to drink x-amount of fluids before practice because you know that’s not going to happen with their schedule.”

To determine how much fluid an athlete should consume during

The Missing Ingredient to High PerformanceIgnoring fluid intake can have severe consequences on health and performance

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competition, Moreau uses a fairly simple mathematical formula. In short form, the player should weigh themselves before and after compe-tition. For every pound lost during competition, the player should be drinking two cups of fluid.

For example, if the player drinks four cups of fluid during the game and weighs four pounds less post-game than they did pre-game, that player should be drinking 12 cups of fluid during the game. Of course, following this formula will only maintain the player’s current hydration level. If that player begins the competition dehydrated, they will end at roughly the same level of dehydration.

Another point of concern, especially among younger athletes, is the overreliance on sports drinks such as Gatorade. As Moreau notes, sports drinks are made to sell on the open market and as a result are crammed full of sugar and artificial flavours and colours so that they appeal to a wider consumer base. He adds that an athlete’s body does not know what to do with these artificial flavours and colours and uses extra energy disposing of them which detracts from overall recovery patterns. He says that in order to justify consuming sports drinks, “you have to be burning some serious calories with whatever sport you’re involved in.” However, he does advise adding a little bit of sodium-type electro-lyte, such as those found in sports drinks, to water for heavy sweaters. A good way of judging if this is necessary is if chalky-white sweat stains appear on an athlete’s clothing after exercise.

Williams isn’t quite so negative when it comes to the use of sports drinks, but says they’re only beneficial to a certain kind of athlete. As a guide, she says athletes playing sports in 60-minute durations or less should stick to water. She adds, “longer duration events or situations where it’s very hot out and the athlete is sweating heavily or they’re doing very high intensity types of training, there can be a benefit for using sports drinks for those types of workouts.” Sports drinks, when used in the latter situations, will keep an athlete better hydrated and prevent blood sugar levels from dropping which can be a cause of fatigue, says Williams.

College athletes, like many students, enjoy a night out at the bar. While alcohol is a cause of dehydration, there are ways of avoiding its effects. Williams and Moreau agree that two alcoholic drinks the night before competition is unlikely to have a severe impact on an athlete’s hydration levels, provided they’re following a daily hydration plan. In addition, Williams advises drinking one cup of water before bed for every alcoholic drink consumed. This will maintain the athlete’s hydra-tion levels.

As with all things, Moreau simply advises using common sense. “I think the plea, especially working with college players and pro players, is you don’t have to have 12 beers. You can probably have two and it’s not going to hamper your performance as much as a binge drinking night will hamper your performance the next day.”

Common sense, vigilance and fostering good habits is what it comes down to. All the training an athlete can muster will not have the net benefit they desire if they’re training and playing dehydrated. They’ll cramp, tire and lose their focus and this can be the difference between a win and a loss. As the experts agree, a water bottle in hand and little bit of attention paid to fluid intake can go a long way.

The three stages of dehydration

Heat CrampsSymptoms:Muscle spasms, usually in the legs

and stomach.Treatment:

Have the person rest in a cool place; give small amounts of cold water or juice; gently

stretch and massage the affected area; do not give salt tablets.

Heat ExhaustionSymptoms:Heavy sweating; paleness; muscle cramps; tiredness; weakness; dizziness;

headache; nausea/vomiting; fainting.Treatment

Drink cool, non-alcoholic beverages; rest; take a cool shower ; seek an air-conditioned environment; wear lightweight clothing.

Heat StrokeSymptoms:Body temperature above 40°C; red,

hot and dry skin; no sweating; rapid and strong pulse; throbbing headache;

dizziness; nausea; confusion; unconsciousness.Treatment:

Get medical assistance immediately; cool them rapidly with whatever means available.

Information from theAmerican College of Emergency Physicians Fourndation /

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

40°C

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CHIROPRACTICChiropractic treatment applies

manual adjustment of joints and soft tissues – in particular the spine – as a means to remedy injuries. Chiropractors concentrate on the spinal manipulation of misaligned joints which fail to function prop-erly, as any distortion of the spine affects the rest of the body.

Adjustment repairs alignment and functions to the joints in the spine and restores a healthy nerve transmission which affects the healing potential of the body’s vital structures, reports the Encyclopedia of Natural Healing.

Nipissing Lakers volleyball player Lucia DeMarco was referred to chi-ropractic treatment by her athletic therapist, Duval, when she was experiencing pain in her neck and back. She started treatments to heal before playing the OCAA champi-onships in 2010 and visited a local chiropractor several times a week leading up to the championships.

DeMarco says despite feeling a little nervous as the chiropractor was “bending and cracking” her joints she felt immediate relief after the first two sessions. And while she doesn’t see the chiropractor any longer for her injury she says she would still be open to that form of treatment. “It definitely did help immediately after I had my injury,” says DeMarco. “If I know there is something they can help me with I will go to them.”

Finding a CureVALERIE BENNETT

Bumps, bruises and sprains. Stretched muscles, pulled ligaments and disconnected joints. The aches and pains of athletes don’t always respond to tradi-tional therapies and, when tried and true methods fail, more and more athletes turn to alternative medicine and alternative therapy.

That’s why Ontario’s athletic therapists need to stay on top of all types of treatment for their players, says Nipissing University’s athletic therapist, Brian “Doc” Duval. “I think that our association, in order to stay vital and stay needed, has to look at those alternative forms of treatment.”

At Ryerson University, head athletic therapist Jerome Camacho says athletes are originally treated using conventional medicine, but there are times when further treatment is sought.

“I think there’s a time and a place for different tools and as long as all the tools are agreeing on what needs to get done then everybody gets along well,” says Camacho.

Dr. Lawrence Micheli, a chiropractor and clinic manager for the Toronto Athletic Club Sports Medicine Clinic, says every person and injury is different, meaning treatment options available vary from individual to individual. “Alternative therapies are extremely effective,” says Dr. Micheli.

Understanding what therapy works best for what type of injury is a good starting point for those looking for relief.

ACUPUNCTUREPain is targeted by inserting fine,

sterile needles into specific pressure points throughout the body. As well as relieving pain, acupuncture can be used to treat musculoskeletal problems and migraines – and even as an anesthetic, according to the Encyclopedia of Natural Healing.

Possible after effects can include fa-tigue and severe pain for a few hours.

Humber Hawks volleyball player Laura Bye seeks acupuncture treat-ment for pain in her foot and ankle and says it’s the, “only thing that seems to make (me) feel better.

“I was young, so I was terrified,” Bye says of her first experience with acupuncture. “But honestly it’s nothing like you think it is. You don’t feel anything. There’s no pain. It’s a really calm procedure.”

Acupuncture is a treatment option for athletes suffering from chronic pain from injuries caused by overuse.

MASSAGE THERAPYTherapeutic massage promotes

general health while also boosting the circulatory and immune sys-tems, according to the Encyclopedia of Natural Healing.

Chronic pain arising from the muscles, ligaments, tendons, joints and bones can affect movement and limit mobility. Most forms of mas-sage work on the soft tissues of the body by kneading the muscle tissue through the skin. This relaxes the muscle so it is easier to stretch tense and uncomfortable muscles, while easing stiff joints and improving flexibility and mobility.

“People come in with injuries and have muscle tension or tissue restrictions in their connective tissue. We can work with that to enhance their overall function and performance,” says Amanda Baskwill, co-ordinator of Humber’s massage therapy program.

OSTEOPATHYOsteopathy is a widely used and

recognized therapy that focuses on the principle that overall health is dependent on the proper function-ing of the musculoskeletal system.

Osteopaths use touch and ma-nipulation of the musculoskeletal system, restoring and improving mobility and balance. Through this, osteopathy strives to ease tension in muscles and repair joint and bone function, strengthening the body systems. This form of complemen-tary therapy is commonly used in athletes to treat sports injuries and repetitive strain injuries along with back and neck pain and joint pain.

Kelly Ebers, a former figure skat-er with the Ryerson Rams, began osteopathy as a treatment option for back pain, after falling on the ice and triggering pain from a pre-exist-ing spinal condition called scoliosis. She was referred to the treatment by her physiotherapist and has used it for several years, standing by it. “I think (osteopathy) is amazing. Any time I can get a chance, I go back for the treatment.”

“I’ve become more aware of my body and I take better care of myself now,” says Ebers.

Courtesy Humber Athletics

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ALEXA TOMASZEWSKI

MacKenzie Lawrence is used to travelling across Ontario. She has a list of things to bring. As she checks them off the list, she packs them into her over-

night bag – sweats, team uniform, toothbrush, hairbrush, et cetera. She also packs alcohol swabs, sugary snacks, her blood glucose monitor and, most importantly, insulin.

Diagnosed in 2010 at the age of 18, Law-rence is a type-1 diabetic and the Mohawk Mountaineers women’s volleyball serving specialist. She balances the two through support and teamwork.

Sean Pellow, head coach of the Mountaineers women’s volleyball team says Lawrence’s diabetes brings the team closer together. “It’s really like a little family and a lot of coaches have said that and then you get in there and you’re like this is really like a team, but these girls are really tight, they’re pretty close knit.”

Type-1 diabetes is a chronic condition requir-ing constant monitoring. Lawrence has to con-trol her blood sugar levels manually, with a clear understanding of how they react to exercise. It is different from type-2 diabetes, where not enough insulin is produced for the body. Type-2 usually occurs in adults over 40 and a signifi-cant lifestyle change is often recommended. Lawrence says this difference causes confusion about her condition.

“Coaches who were older would tell me stuff about type-2 diabetes, I know what I have to do but they don’t really understand,” she says. “I feel like a lot of people don’t really know how to take care of it or what it really is.”

Lawrence finds the lack of information frus-trating, especially when confusion between the two affects her in-game minutes.

“I’ll go low and I’ll treat it and it takes about 10 to 20 minutes for you to feel back to normal, but my coaches will be like, ‘You can’t play any-more, sit on the bench’,” says Lawrence.

Understanding the disease and implementing a team management approach can go a long way in ensuring athletes with type-1 diabetes perform their best on and off the court.

“Diabetes is the one disease where you’re on call 24/7,” says Dr. Michael Riddell, professor at York University and founder of the annual York University Diabetes Sports Camp. The camp studies performance in sports among young diabetic athletes and found performance was best when blood sugar levels were balanced.

Finding a strategy for the diabetic athlete is often through trial and error, says Riddell. It’s something Lawrence must continually work at.

“I am always pretty much learning because there are so many things that influence blood sugar levels,” says Lawrence. “For me it can change all the time just between stress and anxiety. It just depends how my day is and if I’ve gotten enough sleep – things like that can easily affect it.”

Riddell says sports can be a struggle for both diabetics and their doctors. “It is during this time in their lives many athletes decide whether or not to play college athletics and getting a type-1 diabetes diagnosis can easily sway that decision.”

Lawrence agrees. “It’s like a constant – you almost always have to think about it because everything affects the amount of insulin you take and your blood sugar levels.”

SYMPTOMSHigh and low levels of blood sugar affect type-

1 diabetics – sometimes symptoms are easily rec-ognizable, other times it takes the support of one’s peers to note changes in behavior or performance.

“Initially when your blood sugar goes low you might get some sweating and shakiness. That’s not a big deal, especially if we’re athletes (and) we’re used to being sweaty and shaky,” says Riddell. “But if your blood sugar drops a little farther you start to suffer cognitive impairment, you’re not as sharp.

“Now if it goes even farther down you’ll lose consciousness, have convulsions and worst case scenario is of course death from severe starvation of the brain for glucose,” says Riddell.

On the other hand, elevated levels of stress can cause blood sugar levels to rise. “You’re really very tired, you’re lethargic and it may affect your cognitive processing as well. You may not be as sharp,” says Riddell.

Managing Diabetes on the Court

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STRATEGIESEvery athlete is an individual, and the way

type-1 diabetes affects the body can vary. Treat-ment plans include administration of insulin injections, and the monitoring of blood glucose levels, blood pressure and lipid control. These important considerations can prevent diabetes-related complications such as nerve damage or the development of cardiovascular conditions.

Diabetic athletes should always have some type of rapid-acting sugar with them in order to bring sugar levels up during exercise or right after exercise, says Riddell. “I always have something just in case I do go low,” says Law-rence. “Usually when I go low, I eat Rockets [packaged sugar candy] and when I play sports I usually have juice with me or make sure the trainers have some.”

Riddell says another important aspect of managing type-1 diabetes is involvement with a pediatric endocrinologist, as it can be a chal-lenging time for youth, both hormonally and emotionally. Riddell says changing hormones can cause drastic changes in blood sugar levels.

“Things like socializing, studying hard, late nights and drinking are all things that can make diabetes control more challenging,” says Riddell.

Likewise, coach Pellow worries about how partying affects Lawrence’s diabetes.

“There’s not a question that she wants to go out and party but she needs to make sure that she monitors that part of it,” says Pellow. “I always say there’s three things you can be good at in post-secondary education – you can be good at sports, you can be good at academics or you can be good at partying – but you can’t be good at all three. For me there has to be a balance.”

Testing blood sugar levels and fine-tuning blood glucose levels using carbohydrates or insulin adjustments often strikes the balance the diabetic is looking for, says Riddell.

To do this, Lawrence says she tests blood sugar levels four or more times a day.

Having a steady schedule of breakfast, lunch and dinner is ideal, she says. “You usually have around the same amount of insulin to take. Sometimes when you’re on the run it’s hard, your body is going to react.” Even sporadic meal choices like Chinese food can make blood sugar go crazy, but being on a schedule makes planning food choices easier, Lawrence says.

Riddell agrees. “The athlete’s schedule is demanding but at least it’s structured, which could be an advantage.” Olympic swimmer Gary Hall and rower Stephen Redgrave both have type-1 diabetes and have been successful because of their routine, he says. “They have very predictable training regimes where they get kind of familiar with how much insulin they will need for this particular training bout and then what to do right after exercise to replenish that energy.”

TEAM SUPPORTPellow says in his twelve year coaching

experience this is the first time he has been so involved with an athlete’s medical condition. “Throughout a seven-month volleyball season

the biggest danger is the fatigue and not having the energy to do the things she’s supposed to do,” he says.

For Pellow, pre-emptive planning is the most effective way to manage Lawrence’s diabetes on the court. “Specifically for her diabetes we monitor and control it. Our trainers have candy with them at all times in case something would happen,” says Pellow.

Since Lawrence is living on her own for the first time, Pellow is in communication with her daily, checking in on whether she’s tak-ing her insulin and on a proper diet. He also makes sure she’s monitoring her stress levels in relation to her diabetes and to the level of com-mitment she is making to the team as well as to her academics.

Team Captain Kellie Crnic says constant com-munication with Lawrence is the key.

Lawrence, who is fairly new to the team, took some getting used to, says Crnic. “Everyone is individual and different in how they react physi-cally, mentally and emotionally to diabetes.” In a way, Crnic and Pellow both say Lawrence has brought the team closer together.

“It helps us as a team to pay attention to her needs and helping that way,” says Crnic.

Pellow adds, “This team is awe-some from the perspective that they understand everyone has their own individual issues to deal with and can respect that.”

The Importance of CarbohydratesCarbohydrates are foods that raise the

blood sugar. As a result, eating these types of foods requires planning. In many ways controlling carbohydrate intake is the key to managing diabetes.

Particularly for athletes, having the information about carbohydrates is critical to maximizing your fuel storage. “When you exercise you almost exclusively use carbohydrates,” says Dr. Riddell. “If you are exercising at a very high intensity for a long duration carbohydrates are essential because they provide the brain with the much-needed blood sugar for mental tasks.”

In a nutshell, without carbohydrates the brain will starve for glucose.

Packaging and labeling regulations in Canada require a Nutritional Facts Panel on all food products. For a diabetic the two most important pieces of information on that panel are the amount of carbohydrate and the amount of fibre. If you subtract the grams of fibre from the grams of carbohydrate you get the total available carbohydrate and this is the amount that affects blood sugar.

Photos Ang

elo Mazziotti

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MAEGAN MCGREGOR

Anyone who has ever watched the World Series and found themselves not caring one way or the other about the two teams playing, nine times out of ten will root for the underdog.

It’s an age-old formula that has worked again and again in films since the medium was created.

What is it about an underdog story that makes us feel so good? Perhaps it’s as simple as the fact that we all feel like underdogs. We can relate.

Enter the underdog. Nestled in the heart of Northern Ontario, Collège Boréal has a mere 1,400 students spread across three campuses. Founded in 1995 as the only French-language school serving Northern Ontario, Boréal has just four varsity teams: men’s and women’s vol-leyball, badminton and golf. But in true under-dog style Boréal has made its mark – not only in its ability to compete against Anglophone schools 20 times its size, but also its ability to win while remaining true to French-Canadian culture.

“For a small college we have great results,” says badminton coach Lynn Michel.

Boréal’s badminton squad has held its own at the provincial championships in recent years. Valerie Breen and Jessica Dupuis took silver in women’s doubles at the provincials held at Fan-shawe in February. The team also had a banner year in 2009-10. The college took home OCAA gold in women’s team badminton and Breen won gold in women’s singles, while Dupuis and Laura Dube won bronze in women’s doubles.

Michel, who has coached Boréal badminton for nine years, says the varsity programs feel like a family affair, not only because her daughter is the

assistant coach, but because of their need to work cohesively in order to achieve success.

Athletic director Andrea Boyce has been a part of Boréal since 1997 and has seen immense changes in the college’s varsity program.

“When you start a sports program you start with teams and then you build from there. The college has grown immensely as a Francophone college, both in academics and in our sports program. We are fortunate to have immense internal and community support that has allowed us to build up our programs in order to succeed, and I am proud to be a part of such an amazing community history.”

In the past four years Collège Boréal has seen growing success in all its programs, especially badminton, where Breen, a second-year recre-ation and leisure student, has represented the college at nationals.

Breen credits her success to the quality of the coaching at Boréal. “I played club in Ottawa and then I came to Sudbury not expecting to do so well because I think the competition in Ottawa is harder than in Sudbury. But coming here and having a good coach who trains us hard was the most important thing because this was the first time I had an actual coach,” says Breen, who was named the Sudbury amateur athlete of the year in summer 2010.

Boyce says she believes recruiting quality coaches, such as Michel, is the linchpin in why Boréal is an up-and-coming sports college. “I find the investment into coaches makes the dif-ference,” says Boyce. “Once you get good coaches you can work as a team and from there you can build with the students.”

Although Breen was recruited to attend Col-lège Boréal she says she chose the college for its ties in Francophone culture and strong commu-nity support, a quality that Boyce says is indica-tive of its French-Canadian values. “When you are French your culture is close to your heart,” says Boyce. “When students choose Boréal they know that they are remaining in the culture that is familiar and comforting to them, and it helps in the transition as well as being a major asset for their future.”

Boréal is also making strides academically, providing great programs as well as being the school with the highest number of bursaries in Ontario. Boyce believes this assists in the recruitment of students such as volleyball player Joseph Benoit, who chose Boréal for its mining and civil engineering program, as well as the opportunity to play volleyball under his former coach, Ian Busch.

Still, Boréal teams struggle to compete against bigger schools, who Boyce says have a larger budget for recruiting and training, and students who play for more years.

“We are just beginning to see an influx of students who are remaining at Collège Boréal for more than two years which will be a benefit for the success of our teams. It is challenging to compete against schools with huge populations of students who stay for four or five years,” says Boyce.

Dube, a second-year dental hygiene student and badminton doubles player, says playing large schools can sometimes be overwhelming.

“Because our school is so new we don’t have a big selection of players, which is why we haven’t won many things yet,” she says. “When we go to provincials or nationals we are compet-ing against players that have played club their whole lives, and that can be really intimidat-ing because we have all just played in our high schools. But I really enjoy the challenge of competing at that level.”

Boyce says Collège Boréal has no plans to expand the varsity program to other sports just yet, but will continue to build on the success already achieved. For Boyce and the athletes it’s more a mental game. “It’s not about being a small school, it’s about your attitude and how you perceive things. And if you think positive and you work with people you will reach your goals or go beyond your goals.”

There is no question why dozens of films a year are made about underdogs – we enjoy watching them. Someone who comes from the areas we come from, the streets we grew up on and the schools we attended. Someone who, de-spite the odds and competition, has the tenacity to become better. That is Collège Boréal.

A True Underdog Story

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MATTHEW INGRAM

It’s two minutes before the start of a game in Humber’s athletic centre.

Coaches grab their whiteboards and magic markers. Referees remove their whistles from their pockets. The fans settle into their seats. The clock ticks down below one minute until game time. A few final words of inspiration are relayed from the coaches as the volume of the fans starts to rise and drown out the loud riffs blaring over the public address system.

Anyone who attends sporting events regularly will recognize the key actors in this athletic per-formance – referees, coaches, fans, athletes.

But this year there was another group to keep an eye on during Humber home games – a group put in place specifically to capture the intensity and emotion of the athletes playing the sports they love.

There is no mistaking them; the bright red hooded sweatshirts emblazoned with ‘BRTV CREW’ on the back are a dead giveaway.

They are camera operators, the ones making it possible to bring Humber sports to your televi-sion for four hours a week.

From January 23 to March 6, Humber’s broadcast television / videography (BRTV) students teamed up with Rogers TV to bring Humber athletes to televisions across Ontario.

“It all started because Rogers needed high-definition content to broadcast on Rogers TV,” says Humber assistant athletic director Jim

Bialek. “Humber had the capability to shoot and record HD sports so things just fell into place from there.”

On top of being a major opportunity for Humber, the announcement was greatly received by Rogers as well.

“(High-definition) college sports (were) absent from our programming,” says Rogers TV supervising producer Willy Jong. “And when we found out high-definition content was available we jumped on it.”

Jong says Mohawk and Niagara as two schools which have attempted to do something like this with Rogers, but Humber was the first with full HD capability. “The truck they use is very similar to ours and the Humber product is definitely the first time we’ve been able to do it in HD.” Durham College in Oshawa has also had some games broadcast on Rogers.

Jong calls Humber sports “completely un-precedented for HD content” and adds, “it has been a tremendous addition to our line-up. Local sports are a high priority for Rogers.”

Humber BRTV professor Jamie Sheridan says the students who work the games will receive a broadcasting credit that they can use to help them get jobs down the road.

It’s not just Humber’s BRTV program and Rogers that benefited from this coverage.

“This will provide a much bigger platform for athletic endeavours,” says Jong. “Athletes from Humber now have documented game footage to critique their own performances. It seems

like it could also be a valuable coaching tool for Humber coaches.”

Rogers and Humber are also in talks to one day make this process a live event.

“We are absolutely interested,” says Jong. “It has been a great partnership and it would be great to continue next season and for many seasons to come.”

Bialek says he believes it’s just a matter of time before the events are broadcast live.

“It will be really cool for moms and dads everywhere to get to see their kids on the big screen, plasma TV,” he says. “You can only get so much from streaming games online.

“There truly is no better way for athletes to gain exposure and get their names out there than to broadcast the games for a larger audience to see,” says Bialek.

He says that the notoriety that comes with live coverage can have a positive impact on an athlete’s future.

“There are some remarkable athletes here at Humber and we want as many people to get to see them. Live action is the next logical step. I would almost say it’s inevitable.”

Jong says there are a lot of potential road blocks with live coverage, but there are definitely talks about making it live in the future. “Ulti-mately the stakes will be higher, but the finished product would definitely improve,” he says.

The games focused heavily on basketball and volleyball, two of the more popular OCAA varsity sports.

in the House

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sweatmag.com53

After content is shot, the live coverage of the games has been compiled with previously recorded pieces. The additional footage included interviews, highlights and footage from other events, stat pieces and player profiles. The BRTV crew have shot, edited and produced everything that is sent to Rogers.

Rogers doesn’t use a ratings system for its broadcasts, but Jong says “reaction has been really positive.”

Humber students have worked with Scorpio, Humber’s HDTV mobile. Scorpio is described as the most technically advanced mobile at any Ontario college.

As for the benefits of the program, it appears to be a three-way tie.

“Not only does Rogers get HD content,” says Jong, “but Humber’s athletes and students get well-deserved credit for their hard work.”

The partnership with Rogers TV showcases the work of Humber’s BRTV students, but at the same time Humber’s athletes are the first in the OCAA to have their games shot and re-broadcast in high definition for their friends and families to see.

Photos Matthew

Ingram

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SCOREBOARD

Basketball

Landis DoyleHumber HawksMiddle4.5 points per game3.5 kills per game36 service aces

Summer BlyGeorgian Grizzlies

Forward15 points per game

9.6 rebounds per game55 blocks

Players of the Year

Men

’s

Wom

en’s

East W L T PtsAlgonquin 19 1 0 38

Durham 15 5 0 30

St. Lawrence (K) 15 5 0 30

Fleming (P) 11 9 0 22

Seneca 11 9 0 22

Georgian 9 11 0 18

George Brown 9 11 0 18

Centennial 7 13 0 14

Loyalist 6 14 0 12

Cambrian 5 15 0 10

La Cité 3 17 0 6

WestHumber 17 1 0 34

Sheridan 13 5 0 26

Fanshawe 12 6 0 24

Mohawk 11 7 0 22

Niagara 11 7 0 22

Algoma 11 7 0 22

St. Clair 7 11 0 14

Lambton 5 13 0 10

Sault 3 15 0 6

Redeemer 0 18 0 0

East W L T PtsAlgonquin 16 0 0 32

Seneca 13 3 0 26

Georgian 11 5 0 22

George Brown 9 7 0 18

Durham 8 8 0 16

St. Lawrence 7 9 0 14

Fleming (P) 6 10 0 12

Loyalist 2 14 0 4

Centennial 0 16 0 0

WestSheridan 14 0 0 28

Humber 11 3 0 22

Niagara 10 4 0 20

St. Clair 8 6 0 16

Algoma 6 8 0 12

Fanshawe 5 9 0 10

Mohawk 2 12 0 4

Redeemer 0 14 0 0

Champions listed in red

Courtesy Georgian AthleticsAngelo Mazziotti

sweatmag.com57

CurlingVolleyball

Men’s Women’sEast W L PtsDurham 16 2 32

Seneca 14 4 28

Loyalist 14 4 28

Algonquin 13 5 26

Boréal 10 8 20

Cambrian 7 11 14

La Cité 6 12 12

Georgian 5 13 10

Trent 3 15 6

Fleming (P) 2 16 4

WestHumber 15 3 30

Sheridan 15 3 30

Fanshawe 13 5 26

Nipissing 12 6 24

Mohawk 12 6 24

Redeemer 8 10 16

Niagara 6 12 12

St. Clair 4 14 8

Canadore 3 15 6

Conestoga 2 16 4

East W L PtsCambrian 19 1 38

Trent 18 2 36

Loyalist 17 3 34

Algonquin 12 8 24

Georgian 12 8 24

Durham 10 10 20

La Cité 10 10 20

Seneca 6 14 12

George Brown 4 16 8

Fleming (P) 2 18 4

Boréal 0 20 0

WestNipissing 21 1 42

Humber 21 1 42

Mohawk 18 4 36

Fanshawe 16 6 32

Sheridan 13 9 26

Redeemer 11 11 22

Niagara 10 12 20

St. Clair 9 13 18

Canadore 7 15 14

Conestoga 3 19 6

Lambton 2 20 4

Sault 1 21 2

Men’sGold

Fanshawe

SilverFleming (P)

BronzeNiagara

Women’sGold

Algonquin

SilverMohawk

BronzeFanshawe

MixedGold

Seneca

SilverSt. Clair

BronzeAlgoma

Indoor Soccer

East Central East Central West WestFleming (P) 3-0-0 Seneca 4-0-0 Humber 3-0-0 Redeemer 4-0-0

St. Lawrence (K) 2-1-0 George Brown 2-2-0 Sheridan 2-1-0 Fanshawe 3-1-0

St. Lawrence (B) 1-2-0 Durham 2-2-0 Confederation 1-2-0 Conestoga 2-2-0

St. Lawrence (C) 0-3-0 Centennial 1-2-1 Georgian 0-3-0 Niagara 1-3-0

Canadore 0-3-1 Algoma 0-4-0

East Central East Central West WestFleming (P) 2-0-1 Seneca 3-0-1 Sheridan 2-0-1 Fanshawe 3-0-1

St. Lawrence (K) 1-0-2 Durham 2-0-2 Humber 1-0-2 Redeemer 3-1-0

St. Lawrence (C) 1-1-1 George Brown 2-1-1 Confederation 1-2-0 Conestoga 2-1-1

St. Lawrence (B) 0-3-0 Centennial 1-3-0 Georgian 0-2-1 Algoma 1-3-0

Canadore 0-4-0 Niagara 0-4-0

Men’s

Women’s

Gold:Humber Hawks

Silver:Sheridan Bruins

Bronze:St. Lawrence Vikings (K)

Gold:Humber Hawks

Silver:Durham Lords

Bronze:Fanshawe Falcons

sweatmag.com58

Coach’s Corner Player’s Log

Humber Hawks Men’s Rugby

Carey FrenchCentennial Colts Basketball

Kareem Rodney

I played three years for the Centennial Colts men’s basketball team. My first year was back in 2000 when I was fresh out of high school. I also came back to school at the age of 30 and played for the Colts in 2009-10 and 2010-11. My most memorable game was back in 2000 when we were playing Seneca. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best memory. During that game I dislocated my shoulder and thought that it was the end of my career, but luckily it wasn’t. After being out of school for 10 years I came back ready to play and played to the best of my ability. My most recent memorable game was against Durham in the 2009-10 season. The game was at Durham, the stands were packed with fans and even local television was there. It was a great feeling despite the loss. I particularly enjoyed this game because of the amazingly intense crowd and also because they are one of my arch rivals.

This year was a good rebuilding year for Centennial College. Our season started off a little slow but coming down to mid-season we started to gel and became a force to be reckoned with. We beat some of the top teams in our division, including Seneca and St. Lawrence, and even gave the number-one team in the country (Algonquin) a run for its money. Unfortunately, we didn’t make the playoffs but we were right in the mix, coming down to the last two games. Our team was made up of only four veterans, the rest were first-year players. I can see Centennial is heading in the right direction.

I couldn’t ask for a better retirement season. Not only was I able to play and help the team win games, but I was able to work off the court and assist my team with academic advising and mentoring. Being a senior student that excelled with his academics, our athletic department appointed me as a mentor to our players. My role was to make sure that players were do-ing well with their courses and if they needed help or guidance, I would be the support to assist them.

The coaching staff at Centennial did a lot to help me develop my game. They were always positive and motivating with their words and actions. If I was not playing well they wouldn’t just pull me off the court and bench me, but one of the coaches would pull me aside and give me constructive criti-cism. They would always stay positive. During practices, our three coaches worked on different skills. I want to thank Craig Andrews for all the cardio exercises that kept me in shape. I want to thank David Joseph for show-ing me the veteran tricks and post moves that worked, no matter who was guarding me — yes, I was a post player. Lastly, I want to thank Jim Barclay for teaching me the plays, but more importantly teaching me to be a team player. The coaching staff was great. It doesn’t stop there. I also would like to thank Joan Healey (athletic co-ordinator) and Steve McLaughlin (athletic director) for allowing me to play a vital role in the men’s basketball program and for all the support they gave me.

I enjoyed playing with our shooting guard, Andre Bell. He was a childhood friend that I grew up with, living in the same neighbourhood. Being seven years older than Andre, he looked up to me and I actually taught him the game of basketball. He turned out to be a great player and led our team in scoring for the 2009-10 season. Playing with Andre made me proud and brought back great memories. Playing with the Centennial Colts I made a lot of new friends and am very grateful that I did. I have developed friendships that extend pass the basketball court and will continue for a long time to come. I enjoyed playing with every single player on the team.

I want to tell everyone from players to coaches to the athletic department two words: thank you. My basketball career and life at Centennial College have been memorable and wouldn’t have been good without everyone of you. To the younger players, please continue to focus on school and aca-demics. Without an education, you have nothing. Continue working hard on and off the court and remember, If you need anything, I’m here for you. Thanks, once again.

After a decade of coaching Humber Hawks Men’s Rugby, Carey “Crunch” French is heading for the bleachers.

When first approached to write this column I was told it was because I had decided to hang up my boots and, therefore, should have a few pearls of wisdom to impart. It sounded suspiciously like being asked to deliver a sermon from the scaffold, especially since the decision to stand down is always bittersweet and intensely personal.

But what did I really learn? Well for one thing humility. This I dis-covered in the second year of coaching Humber Rugby when I stepped – foolishly – into a drill and urged a 250lb former footballer, 35 years my junior, that he should tackle me so that I could demonstrate the poetry of the offload. He barely got rolling, before I turned and scuttled downfield, as if pursued by an enraged rhino. Dirty Harry was right. Man’s gotta know his limitations. I had learned to delegate. Which, in turn, led to the discovery that if you just stand around the action, looking thoughtful, players will interpret this as evidence of unfathomable depths of wisdom. Rugby players are generous that way.

These are probably not the pearls that the editors of Sweat had in mind. As a professional journalist, who has had to handle the work of sports fig-ures, I can certainly offer some “stick on the fridge” pointers to athletes and coaches who are asked to write stuff like this.

Crunch’s Three Rules:•Don’t preach. Nobody likes it and it only makes you look puffed up.

That doesn’t mean staying away from serious stuff. But even God has a sense of humour. How else do you explain Charlie Sheen?

•Avoid “athlete-ese.” No singing fat ladies; no ain’t overs ‘til it’s overs and, lord help us, no mathematical absurdities. One-hundred-ten percent works fine in the locker-room. On paper it’s just plain dorky.

•Most importantly – narrow the focus. Writing 700 words on the impact of societal change on sport is hard work. But good-versus-bad locker room manners, or water bottle etiquette is a cinch. And it will take me only 10 minutes to fire off a piece on why I wince at uncalled for swearing on the field (it sucks away power better redirected into play). And if you disagree with that – Good. That’s another rule. Write where people live.

That pretty much exhausts the advice I feel qualified to deliver. Mostly, I’ve been on the receiving end of good lessons. The players who have come through the ranks, in fallow times and championship years, have been my best teachers. From them I’ve learned that coaching ends the night before the game. No player ever listens to advice from the sidelines – so why waste breath (I can’t remember a single thing that was ever yelled at me on the field).

Thanks to them, I’ve learned that second chances pay off. People who at first rub me the wrong way are frequently the people I most need on the field.

I’ve learned to expect more commitment and team loyalty in the OCAA than can be found at club – and even some provincial level sports. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps it has something to do with being part of a fam-ily seven days a week, instead of just every Saturday afternoon. That means that job number one on the sidelines is always to bring these natural risk-takers off the field the same way they go on: Standing Up. That’s a lesson that’s easy to talk about – Tough to do.

Most importantly, I’ve learned to appreciate my luck working not only with superb athletes and gentlemen, but great administrators, athletic staff and fellow coaches at Humber College and in the OCAA.

Oh – and yes – I recently learned from a former Seneca Sting forward that a plastic baggie, quietly inserted into reeking post-game footwear, makes “shooting the boot” (drinking a beverage from a sweaty rugby boot) half palatable. Where was this advice when I could have used it?

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