British Columbia Racquetball Association BCRA

March 9, 2010

Report from Victoria - click on Tournaments tab to see results

Our committee would like to extend our thanks to all the players who found time to come to the 24th Annual "Joe Mitchell Memorial" Victoria Open. In remembrance of our dear old friend Joe this was a rather special tournament to all that knew the man well. We hope that everyone had a great time! It was nice to see some new faces at the tourney this year (Rick Mattson, Matt Wolfe, Delores and Jerry McCready as well as Gaetano Pugliese from Kamloops and Blaire Prentice from Calgary) as well as some old faces we haven't seen for a while (Sorry Mr. Burdge, I didn't mean that your face looked old).There was some great matches as well as a few great chokes (we had about 4 candidates for our yearly choker award) this year. We crowned a new, first time Open Champion in Tanner Mattson. He had a very entertaining final against Brad Strugnall and then found time to win the "A" Doubles title with his dad.

We sent one junior home with a very proud grandma. 10th seeded Connor Culhane beat out a very strong, 15 man field in the "B" Singles by beating #7 Steve Hendry, #2 Jack McBride, #3 Trent Schoenert and probably the best #13 seed I've ever seen in any event, Matt Wolfe, in the final. WAY TO GO CONNOR!!

We only had five women this year so they were put into a round robin and from what I saw had some very good matches. We have had more than this in the past so hopefully the word can get out and we can drum up some more competition for the women next year.

There was a lot of fun to be had on Saturday night at the Casino/ Kareoke. Thanks to Trent Schoenert (Casino) and Tony Remedios (Kareoke) for making this a fun evening (Rick Mattson must definitely practice a lot in the shower). A big thank you must also go to Colin Birbeck for the organization of all the meals at the Strathcona Hotel. The juniors got to have an evening at the IMAX and Connor assured me that he had a great time. We had our usual windup luncheon and awards ceremony on Sunday followed by door prizes. I don't know how Frank does it but every time he comes he needs a U-Haul to go home.

All in all it was another great tourney.You can click on-line to http://rbvictoria.shutterfly.com

Password: ymca to view pictures of the tourney. Thanks again and please remember that next year is our 25th Anniversary and we would love to see a capacity crowd. We do have limited space due to court time so when you see it please enter early as we would hate to see someone who really wanted to come not be able to. See ya next year!!

Neil Aldous

Chairman

YMCA/YWCA  Victoria Open committee

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January 4, 2010

Happy New Year!

The racquetball season is set to continue with the annual SuperBowl Classic on January 28-31 at Newlands. You can sign up online (http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=6360) or, if you have trouble, contact me directly.

To accommodate the Olympics, the Victoria YM/YWCA tournament has been moved to March 5-7. http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=6374

As you know, we will be hosting the Nationals in May (23-29) at REVS. We still need lots of help – for example, organizing shuttle drivers and car rental and insurance is a big one. If you want to get involved, please contact me asap!

Congratulations to Anthony Schonberger who represented Canada at the World Juniors in December in the Dominican Republic. Anthony played in the 14&Under singles and doubles divisions, as part of Team Canada.

Also on the junior front, congratulations to Team BC who once again won the BC-Washington Junior Challenge. We had a huge team, and they did great. Thanks to the coaches, including Sebastien Boissonneault, Debbie Goodhope and Stephen Culhane, for leading our kids to victory.