Mississauga Canoe Club

The Mississauga Dragon Boat Festival is now in its ninth fabulous year and attracts a growing number of paddlers eager to show their stuff while giving back to the community. Hosted by the Mississauga Canoe Club, the 2012 edition takes place on Sunday, June 10 at 7:15 a.m. Teams are made up of between 15 and 20 paddlers of different abilities but equally capable to have fun while competing with each other.

TEAM REGISTRATION is now open and continues to Monday May 21, 2012. For more information and to download the registration form, click here: 2012 Mississauga Dragon Boat Festival Register your team before Monday April 2, 2012 to qualify for the Early Bird Registration Special of only $800 + HST.

All funds raised through festival registration and sponsorship will go toward the not-for-profit operation of the Mississauga Canoe Club and 100% of participant pledges will be donated to Cardiac Kids, a volunteer organization that supports children with congenital heart disease and for the Cardiac Ward at the Hospital for Sick Children. See www.cardiackids.ca for more information.

An information session for all athletes heading to the Ocala training camp, as well as for parents of those athletes, will be held at the the Missy club house on Monday, February 6, 2012, at 6:00 p.m. This session is especially useful for those heading south for their first time and it’s strongly recommended they attend as it will cover what athletes should bring and what they can expect in Florida.

Judy Tutty, who first volunteered at the Mississauga Canoe Club 40 years ago and went on to give much of her life energizing and building canoeing and kayaking in Canada, has been honoured with another major award for her contributions to the sport.
Judy was feted with the Volunteer Achievement Award at True Sport Foundation‘s Canadian Sport Awards in January, one of seven recipients honoured for their oustanding contributions and achievements to sports in Canada.
A Life Member of Missy, Judy was nameed a Gilbert Award winner from CanoeKayak Canada in 1993 as a builder of the sport.

Hard to believe that as soon as the racing season started for us here at MCC it ended with the last race of the Canmas Champs last night.  Missy paddlers of all ages competed all week in Welland, Ontario at the Canadian Canoe/Kayak National Championships- placing 4th overall, behind only Trois-Rivers, Cheema and Burloak.

Highlights were plentiful.  From our youngest competitors earning their first Nationals medal in small boats to our seasoned vets helping turn a tough day around in the war canoes, MCC had many fantastic results.  Ecstatic parents cheered 4 days straight and unquestionably played a significant role in this years’ MCC success. THANK YOU!!

National Champions include:

Katy Vincent (4x), Keir Johnston, Anatolyy Mykhayletsky, Chris Vincent (3x), Joel Castonguay (2x), Lee Barich (2x), Drew Gildner (3x) and the Jr. Ladies War Canoe (L. Clarke, K. Vincent, E. Loek, K. Smith, H. Zita, C. Plewes, N. Doherty, E. Caruana, D. Barich, R. Edwards, H. Langlois, R. Pak, M. Cordeiro, M. Howard)

Congratulations MCC, thank you for a fantastic 2011!

Our Bantam/Peewee program successfully competed at the Trillium Championships (Provinicals) over the weekend, placing 3rd overall.   The young athletes are already excited about the prospects of winning the event next year when they will all be “sr. bantams”.

Led by coach Rachel Edwards, Haley Langlois, George Hurley Jr., Holly Zita, Erika Caruana and Mike O’shell, the group achieved great results.

One of the highlights of the day came in the bantam women’s war canoe.  Our girls battled hard from start to finish and were victorious in the end.  An exciting end to a great day.

The pain is only temporary, but the Glory lasts forever!!

After many trials and tribulations, Joel Castonguay and Chris Vincent realized their dream of being selected to Canada’s Jr. World Championship Team that will be competing in Brandenburg, Germany later this month.  Joel and Chris sealed the deal with a victory in the men’s C4 1000m event on Saturday against a field of 20 of Canada’s top Junior canoe paddlers.  Joel and Chris also  placed 3rd in the C2 1000m event less then two seconds off of clubmates Drew Gildner and Lee Barich- themselves coming very near to their own selection to the team after a weekend full of exemplary results!

Joel and Chris have trained together weekly for several years leading up to Saturday’s selection races. Their countless hours of training, their determination and commitment have been instrumental to having both selected to represent our country.

The Mississauga Canoe Club is extremely proud of these two young men and very excited to follow the results coming from Germany.  Best of luck guys!

Recent Jr. World MCC athletes:

• 2005 – Chris Edwards, Dana Morgoch, Geoff Clarke, Tanya Thompson
• 1999 – Andrew Petrolito
• 1997 – Kyle Jeffery
• 1995 – Drayton Coolen, Jeff Daniels, Chirs Sillers, Doug Tutty (coach)
• 1993 – Tamas Buday Jr., Rich Phlelan, Doug Tutty (coach)
• 1991 – Attila Buday, Tamas Buday Jr., Blake Hara, Greg Seko, Mike Oryshak

Click here to view the Mississauga New’s online article on Chris & Joel:

This past weekend MCC had several athletes compete at the Ontario Team Trials in Welland, Ontario.  From 1st year midgets to senior athletes, the club was well represented in the full weekend of racing.

MCC would like to acknowledge and congratulate those who were selected by the Ontario Canoe Team to represent the province at the Lake Placid International Regatta, July 2-4.

Selected athletes are: George Hurley Jr., Drew Gildner, Sebastian Serdegna, Evan Bezemer, Katie Vincent, Haley Langlois, Holly Zita and Alex Bogorin.

Notable performances came from our young kayakers who competed at their first trials with fantastic results. The hard work they put into training throughout the off-season was quite visible and we are all very excited for future successes.

Evan Bezemer realized his potential to race against the ‘big boys’ and came home with several outstanding placings in the C1 finals.  Evan teamed with fellow MCCmate Drew Gildner to win a thrilling C2 1000m race and a huge C2 500m race.  Congrats to you both.

Katie Vincent showed no signs of rust from a winter spent on the slopes and threatened one of the nations’ best female canoers in both the 1000m and 500m events.  Despite coming 2nd in both, Katie set personal bests and showed great canoe form.

Lauren Clarke, Lee Barich, Keir Johnston, Chris Giacomelli and Anatolyy Mykhayletskyy all had equally notable performances. Congratulations!